SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket arrives at Port Canaveral
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Friday has returned to the Space Coast.
SpaceX confirmed the booster's early morning Tuesday arrival at Port Canaveral on its official Twitter and Instagram accounts around 2:30 a.m. Eastern. In a photo, the charred first stage of the rocket stands tall on the "Of Course I Still Love You" autonomous ship near the port's 273-foot-tall cranes.
A crane will lift the 14-story rocket stage off the boat onto a stand, before it is transported to a hangar at Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The operation's exact timeframe is unclear, but the stage probably will be at the port for at least Tuesday before it is moved.
If the rocket stage is deemed in good enough condition after inspections and multiple test firings of its nine Merlin 1D engines, CEO Elon Musk said SpaceX could try to launch it again as soon as June.
The Falcon 9 first launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 at 4:43 p.m. Friday, lifting a Dragon cargo capsule to orbit on its way to the International Space Station, where it arrived safely Sunday morning.
About 10 minutes after liftoff, the first stage fell back through the sky, firing engines several times to control its descent and stick a landing on the "drone ship" stationed more than 200 miles down range in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the first time SpaceX pulled off a landing at sea, after one successful landing on a pad at Cape Canaveral in December.
The sea landing was an important milestone because as many as half of SpaceX's launches will not be able to return to land because of the rockets' speed and trajectory.
To recover and reuse any significant number of boosters, regular landings at sea will be a must.
They are extremely challenging, however, offering the rocket a tiny "postage stamp" of a target that doesn't stay still, Musk said.
SpaceX is expected to have another launch and landing opportunity by late this month or early May.
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