SpaceX launches and lands first stage back on Barge.

[Dingo]

Today is a day that will go down in history.

Full video clip HERE

See the landing HERE

See the full story HERE

[Mike Mitchell]

The first stage looks wild returning that fast and on quite a bit of an angle. 

[Dataman]

Amazing but I still do not understand why they want to land on a small floating platform when they can land it anywhere.  ??? Why add complexity?
Raining here.

[Mike Mitchell]

I think it's a shorter trip launching and returning the rocket from the equator. I suspect the equator launch will come later.

[Dingo]

In December I think they landed it on land.  It all has to do with the entry back from space where.

I found this

Some say that the barge would be much farther from the launch site and would allow the first stage to follow a mostly unpowered ballistic trajectory with some correction. However, it doesn't -- it has a boostback burn. This is because ultimately SpaceX wants to RTLS. Thus, they want to test a full, reversing boostback burn -- but can't for safety reasons. The difference between this partial reversing burn and a full burn are, relative to the entire first stage prop budget, small.

Still not sure but safety would be a concern with it falling on populated area.

[chooka03]

A follow up to this - Space-X successfully launched a previously-used rocket! A first.
They also recovered a $6 million nose fairing for the first time.

This is the sound of people who love their job. (something I'll never know)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsZSXav4wI8

Pretty impressive to watch the countdown and launch. (From about 17min)