SpaceX Falcon 9 Soars to the Sky and Nails First Ever Landing on The West Coast

A Falcon 9 rocket took off from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on October 7, carrying the SAOCOM 1A satellite, part of the constellation for Earth observation developed by the Argentinian Space Agency CONAE. The hardware deployed in orbit this weekend will be used to gather soil moisture information.

It took the rocket 12 minutes to carry its payload to orbit, but the spectacle was not in space, but took place on the ground. For the first time in history, the Falcon 9 booster that carried the cargo attempted and managed to successfully land on a pad on the West Coast.

The landing pad is called Landing Zone 4 and is situated at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, on the site of Space Launch Complex 4W, from which Titan rockets were launched before they were decommissioned in 2005.

The rocket used by SpaceX for this flight is at its second utilization. Back in July, it was deployd to carry to orbit ten Iridium communications satellites, managing to land without a problem on a drone ship located in the Pacific ocean.

The Falcon family of rockets is slowly growing into the most successful reusable booster in history. While other private companies, like Blue Origin, are still testing their technologies, SpaceX is for a while now reusing its rockets and in the process revolutionizing space launch operations.

Bauces rockets can be reused, SpaceX launches are cheaper. The compnay also manages a rather quick turnaround time, meaning each of the boosters recovered after one launch can be quickly used to launch once again.

You can watch the launch of Falcon 9’s latest mission in the video attached below.