SpaceX back in space with successful launch and recovery of Falcon 9 booster

Falcon 9 at Vandenber SLC 4E, ready to life 10 Iridium satellites into orbit. Credit Flickr. Courtesy of SpaceX who has placed their photos in the public domain.
Falcon 9 at Vandenberg SLC 4E, ready to lift 10 Iridium satellites into orbit. Credit Flickr. Courtesy of SpaceX who has placed their photos in the public domain.

I just watched SpaceX lift 10 satellites into low-earth orbit for Iridium. This will allow Iridium to replace their constellation of communication sats. Another 71 sats will go up, of which 60 more will be lifted by SpaceX.

Here are merely two of the super cool aspects of this launch.

First, SpaceX is back in operation. Not that my voice measures large, but congratulations to the entire SpaceX team!

Second, the Falcon 9 booster was successfully recovered on their second drone recovery ship, named Just Read The Instructions,

Before this launch, SpaceX has successfully recovered 6 lift vehicles. The tally is now 7.

One of the announcers said one of the recovered boosters is on permanent display, one will be reused, and another was refired repeatedly to test how many times the engines could be reused.

As I write this, the second stage and 10 satellites have been successfully parked in a low earth orbit. Deployment of the sats will happen in about half an hour.

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