SpaceX launches advanced European weather satellite, lands rocket at sea (photos)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just launched an advanced European weather satellite and aced its landing on a ship at sea.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from historic Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida today (July 1) at 5:04 p.m. EST (2104 GMT), carrying the MTG-Sounder (MTG-S1) satellite toward geostationary transfer orbit.

The rocket’s first stage came back to Earth as planned about 8.5 minutes later, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions,” which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on the deck of a drone ship shortly after launching the MTG-S1 weather satellite. (Image credit: SpaceX)

It was the ninth launch and landing for this particular booster (which is designated B1085), according to a SpaceX mission description. Among the booster’s previous flights were the Fram2 private astronaut mission, the Crew-9 flight to the International Space Station for NASA and a January 2025 launch that sent two private landers toward the moon: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience.

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