SpaceX launched a telecom satellite to orbit and landed a rocket on a ship at sea early Thursday (Nov. 3).
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Falcon 9 rocket carrying Eutelsat's Hotbird 13G satellite lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral
Space Force Station Thursday at 1:22 a.m. EDT (0522 GMT).
The Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth a little less than nine minutes later, touching down as planned on SpaceX's Just Read the Instructions droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the seventh launch and landing for this particular first stage.
"The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, and one Starlink mission,"
SpaceX wrote in a prelaunch mission description.
(Crew-3 and Crew-4 were astronaut missions to the
International Space Station, and CRS-22 and CRS-25 were uncrewed cargo flights to the orbiting lab.)
Hotbird 13G, meanwhile, kept flying atop the Falcon 9's upper stage, which deployed the satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit right on schedule, about 36 minutes after liftoff.