WELCOME

"We were able to successfully land the first stage of

Oct. 8, 2017 by Lena Webb

"We were able to successfully land the first stage of our Falcon 9 rocket on the West Coast of California," said Adam Williams, SpaceX senior vice president of launch operations. "It was a tremendous achievement."

Williams said the mission took about 30 minutes to land on the West Coast of California and the first stage's descent was about five minutes. With the Falcon 9's payload carrying 16 kg of payload, the first stage's landing gear was about 15 feet out of the way and the second stage's landing gear was about 10 feet out of the way.

"We landed on the West Coast of California and we're proud to be here!" Williams said.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and California National Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., built the first-ever multi-stage satellite, the SLS-M mission, which is expected to run for four days without a launch pad.

NASA, in coordination with the U.S. Space Agency, launched the SLS-M mission in October. The mission is designed to land multiple satellites on long-duration missions at the same time.

SpaceX is the first commercial company to test a first stage of a rocket, which will test its first launch vehicle, a Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft will test a new type of rocket: a small satellite called the Dragon capsule, which will carry the first stages of a rocket to the International Space Station.