SpaceX lands its first rocket on West Coast ground

SpaceX has just successfully landed its first rocket on the U.S. West Coast.

After launching a satellite from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base on Sunday evening with the Falcon 9 rocket, the spaceflight company brought its first stage booster back to Earth just under eight minutes after liftoff.

SEE ALSO: Newly-discovered world on the edge of the solar system could lead us to Planet X

While SpaceX has launched a rocket from Vandenberg AFB in July, its landing took place on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.

This time around, the Falcon 9's booster returned to SpaceX's ground-based Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4), located right next to the launch pad at Vandenberg AFB. It's a former launch pad for NASA's Titan family of rockets, which were retired in 2005.  Read more...

More about Space, Science, Spaceflight, Spacex, and Science

from Mashable https://ift.tt/2NuOIAq