I feel incredibly...relieved. Whatever you may think of Elon Musk personally, SpaceX work environment, SpaceX vs. Blue Origin, Kessler syndrome, etc., etc., it seems pretty clear that SpaceX's work with reusable space vehicles is a huge step forward for general human spaceflight, and I'm glad to see them successfully return to flight.
Very nice. Space-X is back in business.<p>Now Space-X needs to catch up on their launch manifest and make some money.
When they're not launching, they're not making money. They're about a quarter billion dollars behind from the pause in launches. Iridium alone has six more launches in the backlog. They don't put dates on their launch manifest any more; the constant slippage is too embarrassing.[1]<p>The first Falcon Heavy launch is supposed to be this spring. That was originally planned for 2013. There are at least three revenue Falcon Heavy launches in the queue. The crewed Dragon launch has slipped to 2018. The Brownsville launch site isn't scheduled to be used until late 2018.<p>Maybe 2017 will be the year Space-X starts to catch up. As a business, this is about launching in volume.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.spacex.com/missions" rel="nofollow">http://www.spacex.com/missions</a>
Here is the technical webcast: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WimRhydggo</a><p>Lots of good information on reddit (/r/spacex).
Here's a video of just the first stage landing for anyone that missed it:<p><a href="https://streamable.com/la9m7" rel="nofollow">https://streamable.com/la9m7</a>
Both stages looking great so far. Stage 1 landed perfectly. I was worried after the earlier explosion with FB satellites. This worked perfectly. Great job SpaceX.
I wish to see Elon Musk's expressions right now.
Schweeet! I really liked that they now have a complete launch to landing video of the first stage, from the first stage.<p>Congrats SpaceX team and welcome back to active flight operations!
I was skimming the recorded webcast and it seemed like the stream was stopped before they confirmed that all 10 satiltes were successfully deployed.<p>I chased down confirmation via this tweet:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/820348655613800448" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/820348655613800448</a><p>> Successful deployment of 10 @IridiumComm NEXT satellites has been confirmed.
Anyone else notice the tumbling object ahead and to the left that appears at about 34:38? <a href="https://youtu.be/tTmbSur4fcs?t=2078" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/tTmbSur4fcs?t=2078</a>