A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a communications satellite for mobile and broadband service over the Asia-Pacific region blasted off from Cape Canaveral and vaulted into space Monday, just 11 days after another Falcon 9 took off from the same pad on a supply run to the International Space Station.
As with that December 5 flight, the Falcon 9’s twice-flown first stage returned to Earth after boosting the vehicle out of the dense lower atmosphere, dropping to an on-target touchdown aboard a SpaceX droneship — the “Of Course I Still Love You” — stationed in the Atlantic Ocean east off Florida’s “Space Coast.”
The successful recovery, some 8½ minutes after launch, was SpaceX’s 47th overall and its 29th aboard a droneship. The 11-day turnaround of pad 40 was a company record.
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