Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

Watch this unique footage tracking a SpaceX rocket landing

By
Add as a preferred source on Google

SpaceX successfully launched its Transporter-2 mission on June 30, sending 85 commercial and government spacecraft (including CubeSats, microsats, and orbital transfer vehicles) and three Starlink satellites into orbit.

After the mission, the commercial space transportation company led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk posted some unique footage of the reusable first-stage Falcon 9 booster as it came in to land at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Recommended Videos

While SpaceX has filmed many of its 80-plus Falcon 9 rocket landings since the first one in 2015, this footage is special in the way that it tracks the booster from high in the sky all the way down to its landing spot. The audio of the booster firing up to slow its descent adds to the special quality of the content.

Tracking footage of Falcon 9 landing on LZ-1 pic.twitter.com/uCR2ZuDSG7

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 1, 2021

SpaceX launched the Transporter-2 mission from Cape Canaveral on the afternoon of Wednesday, June 30.

Watch Falcon 9 launch 88 spacecraft to orbit → https://t.co/bJFjLCzWdK https://t.co/y3JRM5cDd3

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 30, 2021

The mission marked the eighth launch and landing for this particular first-stage booster. SpaceX later posted a video showing a wider view of the rocket coming in to land.

Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on Landing Zone 1! pic.twitter.com/26M9Ptomg7

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 30, 2021

SpaceX also shared footage of the deployment of three Starlink satellites that will join its growing constellation of small satellites geared toward providing internet from space.

Deployment of 3 Starlink satellites confirmed pic.twitter.com/MTRvmoXxyD

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 30, 2021

SpaceX’s mission came on the same day that Virgin Orbit launched its own commercial service for the deployment of small satellites, though its system involves firing a rocket from a converted jumbo jet rather than a more conventional ground-based launch.

California-based Rocket Lab is another space company that has its eye on the small-satellite launch market, and it already has a number of successful commercial missions under its belt following its first one in 2018.

Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Topics
Space is becoming Bezos and Musk’s next data center site, and we have every reason to worry
The AI boom is coming for the night sky
How Vast's space station will look in orbit.

AI data centers already consume vast amounts of electricity and water on Earth, so Silicon Valley has begun looking somewhere considerably more spacious... literally.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, along with several other companies, have proposed enormous constellations of satellites designed to operate as orbital data centers. However, environmental groups and former space officials are now warning that putting them into orbit at the proposed scale could have severe consequences for Earth's atmosphere and the night sky.

Read more
The first possible exomoon is here, and it makes our Moon look hilariously tiny
Scientists may have found the first exomoon, except this one is the size of Jupiter
This artist’s concept depicts a potential volcanic moon between the exoplanet WASP-49 b, left, and its parent star. New evidence indicating that a massive sodium cloud observed near WASP-49 b is produced by neither the planet nor the star has prompted researchers to ask if its origin could be an exomoon.

We have already discovered more than 6,000 planets outside of our immediate neighborhood. Yet, finding a moon orbiting one of those distant worlds has proved considerably harder. Astronomers may finally have something close to the real deal, but this particular object stretches the word “moon” almost beyond recognition.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, researchers detected strong evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Further observations are still necessary to confirm the discovery, but it could become the first confidently detected natural satellite outside our solar system. There is still one tiny complication though. This moon is apparently massive.

Read more
China’s answer to SpaceX’s reusable rockets literally catches boosters in a net
SpaceX catches boosters on legs. China just used a net.
Ammunition, Missile, Weapon

SpaceX's playbook for recovering a rocket booster generally involves legs, a precisely controlled vertical landing, and either a concrete pad or a drone ship. 

China just managed to pull off something similar, but in a slightly different way, and on July 10, it tested the method as well.

Read more