NASA’s historic Pad 39A returns in a blaze of glory
SpaceX booster does U-turn back to Earth
Following trails blazed by Saturn V moon rockets and space shuttles, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Sunday from a storied Kennedy Space Center launch site on a mission to resupply the International Space Station.
The 210-foot rocket carrying a Dragon cargo craft disappeared into clouds after the morning liftoff from Pad 39A, where Apollo astronauts launched to the moon and shuttle astronauts last set sail nearly six years ago.
Minutes later, the rocket’s first stage did something the historic missions never envisioned: flipping around above the atmosphere and flying back to Cape Canaveral for a soft landing that unleashed powerful sonic booms across the area.
“Baby came back,” CEO Elon Musk posted on Instagram.
The landing eight minutes after liftoff was SpaceX’s third of a booster at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, miles down the coast from the launch site. It was the first attempt in daylight, but clouds obscured the views for many spectators.
SpaceX is trying experimental booster touchdowns at sea and on land with the hope of making rockets reusable and could refly a used stage for the first time as soon as next month. Eight boosters have now been recovered.
Two minutes after the landing, cameras showed the unmanned Dragon capsule carrying 5,500 pounds of cargo float away from the rocket’s upper stage in what SpaceX said was a perfect orbit.
The Dragon is expected to arrive at the station around 9 a.m. Wednesday. European astronaut Thomas Pesquet will use a 58foot robotic arm to snare the craft and reel it into a docking port.
The launch was SpaceX’s second this year, after one from California in January that marked the Falcon 9’s return to flight after a rocket exploded on a Cape launch pad during a test Sept. 1.
The accident badly severely damaged Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but SpaceX was nearing the completion of renovations to pad 39A at KSC, which was built in the mid-1960s to support the Apollo program and later modified for shuttles.
On Sunday, the mission’s second attempt after a rocket problem scrubbed the first try Saturday, crowds at KSC cheered the Falcon 9’s thundering ascent and landing.
The first launch from pad 39A since the shuttle Atlantis lifted off in July 2011 was a psychological boost for the space center eager to show it had evolved into more than just a NASA spaceport. The space agency is preparing its own Space Launch System rocket, more powerful than a Saturn V, to launch from pad 39B to the north, possibly in late 2018.
SpaceX next year plans to begin launching astronauts from pad 39A on missions to the space station, which Boeing will also fly from neighboring Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
A Falcon 9 could fly again from KSC within two weeks, launching a commercial communications satellite.