SpaceX launches rocket from historic moon pad

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX rocket soared from NASA’s long-idled moonshot pad Sunday, sending up space station supplies from the exact spot where astronauts embarked on the lunar landings nearly a halfcentury ago.

It was the first flight from NASA’s legendary Launch Complex 39A since the shuttle program ended almost six years ago, and SpaceX’s first liftoff from Florida since a rocket explosion last summer.

The crowds at Kennedy Space Center watched eagerly as the unmanned Falcon 9 rocket took flight with a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station. They got barely 10 seconds of viewing before clouds swallowed up the Falcon as it thundered skyward.

As an extra special treat, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes after liftoff, a feat accomplished only twice before. Most of SpaceX’s eight successful booster landings — rocket recycling at its finest — have used ocean platforms. As they did during the shuttle era, sonic booms heralded Sunday’s return.

SpaceX employees at company flight headquarters in Southern California cheered as the 15- story booster landed upright at its designated parking spot at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk celebrated the successful touchdown via Twitter.

“Baby came back,” he tweeted.

ORLANDO SENTINEL] [RED HUBER/ A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, from where a rocket once carried the first U.S. astronauts to the moon and where the last space-shuttle mission was sent up.