A Russian military spacecraft designed to map variations in Earth’s gravity field, rotation and tectonic movement reached orbit Sunday after a launch aboard a modified Soviet-era missile that spawned an uproar from Canadian environmentalists over where the rocket would drop a potentially toxic booster stage.
A Falcon 9 rocket core recovered after last week’s launch of a Thai communications satellite returned to port in Florida on Thursday as SpaceX preps a separate rocket structure for tests to prove it can withstand multiple missions and mulls pricing of a previously-flown rocket, targeting a re-flight of a used booster by the end of the summer.
Take a virtual trip from space back to planet Earth with an sped up video clip showing the eye-popping on-board views from the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster as it plummeted back to Earth, opened aerodynamic steering fins and fired its engines for a final braking maneuver just before touchdown.
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