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 The successful autonomous touchdown of the booster at sea marked
another milestone for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his
privately owned Space Exploration Technologies in the quest to
develop a cheap, reusable rocket, expanding his edge in the
burgeoning commercial space launch industry.
The liftoff at 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air
Station also marked the resumption of resupply flights by SpaceX for
NASA following a launch accident in June 2015 that destroyed an
earlier cargo payload for the space station.
About 2-1/2 minutes after Friday's launch, the main part of the
23-story tall, two-stage SpaceX rocket separated, turned around and
headed toward a landing platform floating in the Atlantic about 185
miles (300 km) northeast of Cape Canaveral.
A live video feed broadcast on NASA television showed the rocket
booster, its four landing legs extended, descending over the ocean
before settling itself upright on the barge-like platform, roughly
eight minutes after launch.
 "The rocket landed instead of putting a hole in the ship or tipping
over," Musk told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center a short time
later. "We're real excited about that."
Four previous at-sea landing attempts had failed. But a Falcon 9
main-stage rocket achieved a successful ground-based touchdown in
December, the first ever during an actual commercial space mission.
President Obama hailed the latest accomplishment on Twitter, saying,
"Congrats SpaceX on landing a rocket at sea. It's because of
innovators like you & NASA that America continues to lead in space
exploration."
The reusable rocket booster should arrive back in Florida on Sunday
and will be test-fired about 10 times, then likely re-launched,
probably on a commercial flight, as early as May, Musk said.
ACCELERATED LAUNCH SCHEDULE
SpaceX plans to plans to start launching rockets about every two
weeks from its sites in Florida and California later this year as
the company tackles satellite-delivery orders worth some $10
billion, company officials said.
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Roughly half the upcoming missions will leave the Falcon 9's booster
with too little reserve fuel to fly all the way back to the launch
site for a return landing, so the ability to land at sea is
essential, Musk said.
He estimates each Falcon 9 booster should be good for 10 to 20
launches, possibly up to 100 with minor refurbishment.
SpaceX also plans to debut a heavy-lift version of the Falcon rocket
this year, equipped with 27 engines powering its first-stage,
compared to the nine currently used.
The cargo ship that lifted off on Friday, a capsule dubbed Dragon,
was due to arrive on Sunday at the space station, the $100 billion
laboratory flying about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. It is packed
with about 7,000 pounds (3,175 kg) of food, supplies and
experiments, including a prototype inflatable habitat.
Built by Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace, the lightweight fabric
habitat will be tested to see how it compares with more traditional
orbiting enclosures made from metal in the hostile environment of
space.
The U.S. space agency is interested in expandable habitats to serve
as crew living quarters during eventual three-year trips to and from
Mars.
(Reporting by Irene Klotz from Cape Canaveral; Editing by Steve
Gorman and Tom Brown)
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