Eleven days after a thrilling landing at sea, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket booster is coming back to the company’s space-age garage in Florida, in preparation for engine tests and potentially the first-ever reuse of its rocket hardware.
The Falcon blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and lofted a Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station on April 8. Minutes after launch, the first-stage booster made an unprecedented touchdown onto an autonomous spaceport drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
It took a few days for the ship to come back to Florida’s Port Canaveral in Florida. Then the booster was packed up for a slow, careful trip back to SpaceX’s launch processing facility at Kennedy Space Center. Visitors happened to catch video of the Falcon passing by today.
