His company Space X’s rocket Falcon 9 blasted off from NASA’s cargo run to International Space Station on Friday.
The successful autonomous touchdown of booster at sea is what Elon Musk is proud of. He is one of the only entrepreneurs in the world who is in pursuit to develop cheap, reusable rockets to make space travel cheaper.
“The rocket landed instead of putting a hole in the ship or tipping over,” Elon Musk taking to the reporters after the liftoff. “We're real excited about that.”
The liftoff happened at 4.43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Station in United States. And about 150 seconds later, the 23-story two part Space X rocket booster separated. The booster fell around 300kms northeast of the Cape Canaveral.
There have been four previous failed attempts to land a rocket booster at-sea before this turned out to be a successful one. Even US President Barack Obama congratulated Elon Musk and his team of scientist with this tweet.
Congrats SpaceX on landing a rocket at sea. It's because of innovators like you & NASA that America continues to lead in space exploration.
— President Obama (@POTUS) April 8, 2016
The reusable rocket will be back in Florida by Sunday and after many tests, it will be re-launched in another of the missions by NASA sometime in May.
Article originally published in The Hindu
Image Credit: AP