Falcon 9 Lands After an Orbital Launch
A Falcon 9 first stage landed at Cape Canaveral on December 21, 2015, local time, after launching satellites.
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The Event
A Falcon 9 first stage landed at Cape Canaveral on December 21, 2015, local time, after launching satellites. It was December 22 in Universal Time.
The Wider Story
The event demonstrated recovery of a booster after an orbital-class mission. The upper stage continued its separate task in space.
Putting the Event in Perspective
The recovered stage had not itself entered orbit.
Reading the Historical Record
Distinguish this achievement from earlier suborbital rocket landings and from later reuse of the same hardware.
About the Historical Recreation
The accompanying visual is an illustrative reconstruction: an illustrative Falcon 9 first stage descending vertically onto a coastal landing pad at night. It is not authentic archival footage, an eyewitness record or additional evidence for the event.
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