Watch this replay of Monday’s liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, followed by touchdown of the booster’s first stage on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket took off from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex 4-East at 5:37:01 a.m. PDT (8:37:01 a.m. EDT; 1237:01 GMT) Monday with the third batch of 10 next-generation Iridium voice and data relay satellites.
It was the 14th Falcon 9 flight of the year, and the 42nd launch of a Falcon 9 rocket overall since 2010. The landing on SpaceX’s drone ship — “Just Read the Instructions” — marked the 17th time SpaceX has recovered one of its first stage boosters intact.
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