Another milestone for the SpaceX chief Elon Musk -- "the Falcon has landed."
For the first time ever, after launching a satellite into the space SpaceX managed to end the show with a perfect landing of its rocket on the Californian soil. The company declared their victory on the live webcast.
Until now, all the booster landings of SpaceX have all taken place on the deck of the company's drone ship, named Just Read the Instructions. This time, the experts minutely calculated the choreographed orbital gymnastics and the first stage booster of the famous Falcon 9 rocket stuck its perfect landing in the center of SpaceX's new landing pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, LZ-4.
Falcon 9 taking off above Downtown LA. Shot at 1 second interval alongside
Credit: @EmericTimelapse or (instagram: https://t.co/NZ8yj2A2nB ) @elonmusk @SpaceX #RIN #Navigation #Falcon9 #ElonMusk #SpaceX #spacexlaunch #SAOCOM1A #California pic.twitter.com/JMUTzbdlNS
— Royal Institute of Navigation (@at_RIN) October 8, 2018
Before sticking the perfect landing on the soil, the Falcon 9 rocket delivered the latest Earth-observing satellite of Argentina, dubbed SAOCOM-1A, into space. Since the night sky was absolutely clear, without a single shred of cloud, the Falcon's show was on full display. Many onlookers were delightfully surprised, who were not aware of the launch, to see the unusual light in the night sky. Well, now you know, it's not a UFO!
Known as "twilight phenomena," it occurs when launches take place on clear days shortly after sunset and are visible brightly from Los Angeles across the trajectory of the rocket.
This spaceflight marked the first-ever landing on the solid ground in California and 30th landing in total for Elon Musk's SpaceX out of total 62 launches. Only 12 of these launches has managed to land on the solid ground. Although this one is the first landing on California's solid ground, even before this, the company had managed to land its rockets on the land. However, all those landings took place at the launch site of Florida's Cape Canaveral, where Elon Musk's firm has a pair of launch and landing pads.
SpaceX has long been trying to achieve ground landings on its Vandenberg facilities, which is named Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4 for short). SLC-4, which was originally the home of Originally Titan missiles, is essentially two launch sites in one.
These landings are not very easy; although it may look like that in the videos. If something goes off, the entire situation can be proved to be disastrous for Elon Musk and SpaceX. With the success like this one, SpaceX is moving closer to its goal of sending a rocket back to space flowing its landing within 24 hours.
