It’s been a busy time for Elon Musk and SpaceX, lately. Earlier this week, the company launched 64 satellites (and a art project known as the Orbital Reflector) in what was the largest rideshare mission in history. The mission was also historic because it involved a booster making its third successful landing. And this was after Musk released more details about his proposed BFR, henceforth known as the “Starship”

And earlier today (Wednesday Dec. 5th), SpaceX launched its sixteenth Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-16) to the International Space Station (ISS). While the deployment of the Dragon spacecraft was successful, the first stage booster did not make it back to the landing pad. After suffering from an apparent malfunction in one of its grid fins, the booster fell into the sea – but remained intact and will be retrieved.

The mission lifted off at 10:16 am PST (01:16 p.m. EST), from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The Dragon spacecraft, which had previously been used for the CRS-10 mission in February of 2017, carried more than 2,540 kg (5,600 lbs) of supplies and payloads. Among these were materials that are critical to supporting the ongoing research and investigations aboard the ISS.

As with previous launches, the company began live-streaming the launch via webcast. About seven minutes after liftoff, the second stage and Dragon spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9’s first stage and proceeded to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). At 10:26 am PST (01:26 pm EST), SpaceX announced “Second stage engine burn complete. Dragon confirmed in good orbit,” followed shortly thereafter by confirmation that its solar arrays had deployed.

The first stage then began descending towards Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This was to be the twenty-seventh time that SpaceX had managed to successfully retrieve a first stage booster. However, 7 minutes and 25 seconds after the launch, the first stage began tumbling uncontrollably towards the surface. This was apparently due to the failure of one of the grid fins, which stabilize the first stage during its descent.

Luckily, the mission controllers were able to stabilize the rocket in time with some bursts from the engine, bringing the first stage in for a soft landing on water off the coast of Florida. At 10:34 am PST (0:34 EST), Musk tweeted the apparent cause of the failed landing and addressed possible changes to avoid similar problems in the future.

“Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea. Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched.” he said, adding later, “Pump is single string. Some landing systems are not redundant, as landing is considered ground safety critical, but not mission critical. Given this event, we will likely add a backup pump & lines.”

Engines stabilized rocket spin just in time, enabling an intact landing in water! Ships en route to rescue Falcon. pic.twitter.com/O3h8eCgGJ7 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 5, 2018

Musk also posted the video of the first stage’s descent, which showed it spinning as it fell to Earth, how its spin rate was slowly arrested with correctional thrusts, and how it touched down on the ocean and fell sideways into the water. Musk also indicated that ships were en route to retrieve the booster. When asked if the booster would be reused, Musk replied, “We may use it for an internal SpaceX mission.”

While the first stage booster did not land as intended, the fact that it survived the descent is no small feat. In addition, this should not distract from the fact that the launch itself went by the numbers. Currently, the Dragon spacecraft is on schedule to arrive at the ISS by Saturday, Dec. 8th. Once there, the crew will use the station’s 17.6 m (57.7 ft) robotic arm (aka. Canadarm2) to capture the Dragon spacecraft and attach it to the orbiting laboratory.

The arrival of the Dragon spacecraft will also be the subject of a live webcast. Coverage will begin at about 02:00 a.m. PST (0:500 a.m. EST) with the capture expected to happen about 1 hour later.

In the meantime, you catch the replay of the launch here:

Further Reading: SpaceX, Twitter, ArsTechnica </s> SpaceX has successfully launched its 20th rocket of the year, a mission taking supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), but the landing wasn't quite as successful.

Their Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida at 1.16pm Eastern time (6.16pm UTC) today, carrying the CRS-16 Dragon spacecraft into orbit. This is a mission under contract with NASA, as part of their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program.

SpaceX also attempted to land the first stage booster of the rocket – the first in a new Block 5 class – back on Earth about eight minutes after launching at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral. However, the landing appears to have experienced some problems, with the rocket instead hitting the ocean rather than landing on the ground.

Video footage from just before the landing attempt showed the first stage spinning out of control, with one of its grid fins that it uses to steer itself seemingly out of position. SpaceX later confirmed the booster had performed a "water landing", rather than making it to the landing pad.

"Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea," CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter. "Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched."

The Falcon 9 rocket used on this mission had not been used before, but the Dragon spacecraft had. It had previously flown on the CRS-10 mission in February 2017. It will take the spacecraft several days to reach the ISS, due to arrive on Saturday December 8.

On board are 2,540 kilograms (5,600 pounds) of supplies, which includes 250 experiments. Among these are 40 mice as part of the Rodent Research-8 (RR-8) mission, along with food bars for the mice. This had caused the flight to be delayed from its initial planned launch yesterday, December 4, when their food became mouldy and NASA had to fly some replacements in.

These mice will live on the station for between 30 and 60 days. Sadly after that they’ll be euthanized, so that their tissue samples can be studied to see how their muscles have coped with living in the microgravity environment of the ISS.

As mentioned this was SpaceX’s 20th launch of the year, and the 19th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket in 2018 – the other was the Falcon Heavy launch on February 6. This is the most launches SpaceX has ever completed in a single year, with their previous record of 18 coming in 2017.

This week also marked the eighth anniversary of SpaceX’s first Dragon flight for NASA, which launched on December 8, 2010, with this being the 16th. SpaceX is contracted in total for 26 missions to the ISS, and next year they are set to begin not just crewed flights, but human flights too.

The number of paylaods on board Dragon is the largest number of payloads ever taken to the ISS in a single launch. And it’s been a good week for multiple-payload fans, because just two days ago on December 3, SpaceX launched the SSO-A mission with a whopping 64 different satellites on board.

Dragon will remain on the ISS after about five weeks, when it will depart the station, re-enter our atmosphere, and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. At the moment, this is the only cargo spacecraft that can return experiments and research from the ISS. </s> CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the final Block 4 version of the launch vehicle to be launched, lifted of from the Cape’s Space Launch Complex 40 on a mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, June 29, 2018.

The flight got underway at 5:42 a.m. EDT (09:42 GMT) with the CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft perched atop the approximately 230-foot (70-meter) tall F9. The “flight-proven” Dragon spacecraft was tasked with carrying an estimated 5,900 pounds (2,676 kilograms) worth of supplies and equipment to low-Earth orbit (LEO). From there, it is scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS on July 2.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The last Block 4 variant of the Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida on June 29, 2018. The mission, a cargo run to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The CRS-15 cargo Dragon spacecraft began its ascent toward the International Space Station at 5:42 a.m. EDT. Photos courtesy: Scott Schilke, Mike Deep, Mike Howard, Michael McCabe, Vikash Mahadeo, Andy Sokol with Turbofox Photography CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The last Block 4 variant of the Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida on June 29, 2018. The mission, a cargo run to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The CRS-15 cargo Dragon spacecraft began its ascent toward the International Space Station at 5:42 a.m. EDT. Photos courtesy: Scott Schilke, Mike Deep, Mike Howard, Michael McCabe, Vikash Mahadeo, Andy Sokol with Turbofox Photography </s> CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX rocket soared from NASA’s long-idled moonshot pad Sunday, sending up space station supplies from the exact spot where astronauts embarked on the lunar landings nearly a half-century ago.

It was the first flight from NASA’s legendary Launch Complex 39A since the shuttle program ended almost six years ago, and SpaceX’s first liftoff from Florida since a rocket explosion last summer.

The crowds at Kennedy Space Center watched eagerly as the unmanned Falcon 9 rocket took flight with a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station. They got barely 10 seconds of viewing before clouds swallowed up the Falcon as it thundered skyward.

As an extra special treat, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes after liftoff, a feat accomplished only twice before. Most of SpaceX’s eight successful booster landings — rocket recycling at its finest — have used ocean platforms. As they did during the shuttle era, sonic booms heralded Sunday’s return.

SpaceX employees at company flight headquarters in Southern California cheered as the 15-story booster landed upright at its designated parking spot at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk celebrated the successful touchdown via Twitter and Instagram.

The celebratory roar grew when the Dragon cargo ship successfully reached orbit a couple minutes later. It will reach the space station Wednesday, delivering 5,500 pounds of food, clothes and experiments.

It was SpaceX’s second launch attempt in a row. Saturday’s effort was foiled by last-minute rocket concerns. The repairs paid off, and even the clouds parted enough to ensure a safe flight.

Musk said he’s honored to use Launch Complex 39A. The company hopes to launch astronauts from this very spot next year, bringing U.S. crew launches back to home soil after a longer-than-intended hiatus. SpaceX Mars missions, first robots then people, could follow from here.

If the pad weathered Sunday’s launch well, another Falcon could be standing there for a satellite send-up in just two weeks.

Kennedy Space Center’s director Robert Cabana, a former shuttle commander who flew four times from 39A, is thrilled to see the pad used for commercial flights like this “instead of just sitting out there and rusting away.” It’s a stark contrast, he noted, to the depression that followed the final shuttle mission in 2011.

“It’s just really an exciting time,” Cabana said just before liftoff.

It was a momentous comeback for SpaceX. The last time SpaceX had a rocket ready to fly from Cape Canaveral, it blew up on a neighboring pad during prelaunch testing Sept. 1. Although the company successfully returned to flight last month from California, the focus was on getting leased Launch Complex 39A ready for action given that the pad with the accident was left unusable. The damaged pad should be back in action later this year.

Built in the mid-1960s for the massive Saturn V moon rockets, Launch Complex 39A has now seen 95 launches. Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins left Earth from here on July 16, 1969, on the first moon-landing mission. The very first space shuttle pilots, John Young and Robert Crippen, soared from here on April 12, 1981. And in a grand shuttle finale, Atlantis took off from here on July 8, 2011.

NASA signed over 39A to SpaceX in 2014 under a 20-year lease.

SpaceX has spent tens of millions of dollars to make 39A Falcon-ready. By the time astronauts climb into a Dragon capsule to fly to the space station, Shotwell said, pad renovations will exceed $100 million.

Last week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office warned the commercial crew launches by SpaceX and Boeing are at risk of slipping into 2019. “The hell we won’t fly before 2019,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told reporters in response.

In a tweet Saturday, Musk said the company has already “retired” so much research and development risk on the crew Dragon capsule “that I feel very confident of 2018.”

As for the second-stage steering issue that cropped up Saturday, SpaceX hustled to replace an engine part before Sunday morning’s try. Musk said he personally called Saturday’s launch off, saying he was unwilling to risk something going wrong.

For SpaceX employees long accustomed to breaking new ground, Sunday was “a huge deal for us,” according to SpaceX’s Dragon mission manager, Jessica Jensen.

“I’m sure the team will be out celebrating,” Jensen told reporters. “We’ll be out tonight if you want to find us.” </s> Success all around for today’s SpaceX mission. The company successfully launched a Dragon spacecraft that is on its way to the International Space Station. SpaceX also successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral.

The weather was cloudy but it looks like it wasn’t enough to stop SpaceX from launching a rocket. At 9:39 ET, the Falcon 9 took off from the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A.

While this name might not sound familiar, the Apollo 11 mission used this launch complex to send the first humans to the Moon back in 1969. This is the first time this launch complex is used since the 2011 Space Shuttle launch.

Two and a half minutes later, the second stage parted ways with the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. The first stage was on its way back to Earth, while the second stage was carrying the Dragon spacecraft.

And just eight minutes after the initial takeoff, the first stage successfully landed at Cape Canaveral.

Meanwhile in space, the Dragon spacecraft deployed its solar panels and is now going to orbit around the Earth for a couple of days until it gets closer to the International Space Station. The spacecraft is carrying 5,500 pounds of supplies for the astronauts currently in space. </s> SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 12:45 a.m. ET Monday and delivered the Telstar 18 VANTAGE commercial communications satellite to geostationary transfer orbit. The rocket's first stage successfully landed on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship and will return to Port Canaveral in a couple days. </s> Two days after a successful launch from California, SpaceX fired off another Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Wednesday, this one carrying a Dragon cargo ship loaded with 5,660 pounds of equipment and supplies bound for the International Space Station.

But an attempt to recover the booster's first stage ended in failure when the booster experienced a control problem during its final descent, landing in the Atlantic Ocean just east of the launch site. Television cameras switched away from the rocket a moment before impact.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted that a titanium grid fin, used to help steer the rocket during descent and maintain the proper orientation, malfunction, adding that the rocket otherwise appeared to suffer only minor damage.

"Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea," he said. "Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched."

It was SpaceX's sixth outright landing failure and the first since June 2016, ending a string of 32 successful recoveries, 20 on droneships, 11 on land at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and one at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Musk says the new "block 5" Falcon 9 stages are designed fly dozens of times with minimal refurbishment between launchings, a key element in the company's drive to lower launch costs by recovering and re-flying recovered stages.

The stage launched Monday from California was making its third flight, a first for SpaceX. But the rocket launched Wednesday from Cape Canaveral was brand new. It's not yet clear what went wrong with the grid fin or whether the mishap will prompt the Air Force to reconsider SpaceX's clearance to land at the Air Force station.

The area around the landing zone currently is evacuated for SpaceX flights attempting a return to Florida, but that was not a factor Wednesday given the rocket's water splashdown.

During the 69th International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany, Oct. 3, Hans Koenisgman, vice president of build and flight reliability for SpaceX, said multiple reflights will soon be the rule, not the exception.

"Beginning soon, we will start flying a booster three times, and then take it to four times, five times, an so on and so forth," he said. "We have obviously to be very careful in evaluating boosters that come back after multiple flights. We want to make sure that we don't see wear and tear in the wrong spots."

The mission got underway at 1:16 p.m. EST (GMT-5) when the Falcon 9's nine Merlin 1C engines ignited with a roar and a torrent of fiery exhaust, quickly pushing the 230-foot-tall booster away from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Liftoff came a day late because of time needed to replace moldy food bars in a habitat housing 40 rodents being carried to the station for medical research. But it was clear sailing Wednesday and the countdown ticked to zero with no interruptions.

At the moment of liftoff, the space station was flying 250 miles above the Indian Ocean south of Australia, but the plane of its orbit was sweeping across the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as Earth rotated below it. The Falcon 9 climbed away to the northeast directly into that orbital plane to enable the planned rendezvous.

The first stage engines shut down and the lower section of the rocket fell away two minutes and 23 seconds after liftoff. The single engine powering the second stage then ignited for a six-minute 18-second burn to complete the climb to orbit.

The first stage, meanwhile, flipped around and restarted three engines to reverse course and head back toward Florida. Another burn four minutes later slowed the stage down for descent back into the thick lower atmosphere.

Long-range tracking cameras provided spectacular views as the stage dropped tail first toward Cape Canaveral. But television views from a camera mounted on the rocket suddenly showed it rotating roughly about it's long axis.

The rocket's center engine apparently started as usual for landing, but by then the booster was well off course and landed in the water.

As it now stands, SpaceX's landing record stands at 32 successful booster recoveries, 11 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, one at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and 20 on off-shore droneships.

But as always, the primary goal of Wednesday's mission was to deliver the Dragon cargo ship to the proper orbit.

If all goes well, the spacecraft will reach the station Saturday morning, pulling up to within about 30 feet and then standing by while station commander Alexander Gerst, operating the lab's robot arm, locks onto a grapple fixture.

Flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will take over at that point, operating the arm by remote control to pull the Dragon in for berthing at the Earth-facing port of the station's forward Harmony module.

The science gear on board includes an experiment to test robotic spacecraft refueling techniques using ultra-cold cryogenic propellants, another instrument that will use laser beams to measure tree heights globally to determine the effects of deforestation on carbon dioxide processing and another to develop wound dressings that improve drug delivery.

Yet another experiment will study development of retinal implants intended to restore vision to patients with age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. The Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy Space Station Challenge is sponsoring student experiments to develop a UV-activated dental glue that could help astronauts on long-duration voyages and another testing a mist-based irrigation system for plants grown in space.

With the Dragon in hand, the station crew will turn its attention to a planned spacewalk next Tuesday by cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Oleg Kononenko to inspect the Soyuz MS-09/55S ferry ship that carried Gerst, Prokopyev and Serena Auñón-Chancellor into orbit on June 6. Kononenko arrived at the station Monday along with Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain.

In late August, sensors detected a small pressure drop in the station's air supply that was traced to a leak in the upper habitation module of the Soyuz MS-09 vehicle. An inspection revealed what looked like a small hole drilled into an interior panel.

Prokopyev sealed the hole with cloth soaked in epoxy and stopped the leak. Russian engineers ordered the spacewalk next week to inspect the exterior of the Soyuz to look for any signs of damage that might be related to the hole found inside the spacecraft.

While the hole appeared to be the result of deliberate action on someone's part, presumably before launch, the Russians have not yet revealed any conclusions.

In any case, the habitation module is discarded before atmospheric entry and the issue is not considered any sort of safety threat when Gerst, Prokopyev and Auñón-Chancellor return to Earth on Dec. 20. </s> CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — Clear weather and a Moonlit pre-dawn sky provided perfect conditions as SpaceX launched its final Block 4 Falcon 9 on its fifteenth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The rocket lifted off at 5:42 a.m. EDT (9:42 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40).

If everything continues to go as it is planned, the CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft should deliver an estimated 5,900 pounds (2,676 kilograms) worth of supplies and equipment to low-Earth orbit (LEO), where it is scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS on July 2.

The mission, part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with SpaceX, saw the use of two flight-proven vehicles — the Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA’s TESS spacecraft, and the Dragon capsule that was used for the CRS-9 mission in 2016. Only 10 weeks separated the TESS mission and the flight of CRS-15, highlighting how far SpaceX has come with their reusable technology.

Weather for today’s liftoff was predicted by the 45th Weather Squadron as having a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions, with only a slight concern for cumulus and anvil clouds.

Approximately three seconds prior to liftoff, the nine Merlin 1D engines ignited with a telltale green flash. The engines, which burn a mixture of liquid oxygen and a highly refined kerosene called RP-1, produce a combined 1.71 million pounds-force (7,600 kilonewtons) of sea-level thrust. This provided enough power to propel the rocket and the Dragon spacecraft off the pad. The vehicle cleared the tower shortly thereafter.

After gaining speed and altitude, the Falcon 9 began its gravity turn and assumed a northeasterly heading.

As the vehicle accelerated, the forces experienced by the rocket – atmospheric pressure combined with velocity, a condition known as maximum aerodynamic pressure (max Q) – reached their greatest at approximately 79 seconds into the flight.

The first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines continued to power the vehicle for another 96 seconds, shutting down at 2 minutes and 45 seconds after it had left the launch pad far below. This was followed three seconds later by separation of the first and second stages.

Like most SpaceX launches carried out this year, the Falcon 9 rocket was deemed expendable and not reused. As such, the F9’s first stage was not recovered. Given this, there were no in-flight acrobatics from a returning booster orchestrating a series of flips and engine burns so that it could return safely for a ground landing or on an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship out in the Atlantic.

Shortly after stage separation, the second stage’s lone Merlin 1D-Vacuum (MVac) came to life. The vacuum-optimized engine – similar to the power plants on the first stage, but with a larger nozzle extension – continued to accelerate the stage and its payload with some 210,000 pounds-force (934 kilonewtons) of thrust.

The second stage continued accelerating the spacecraft and its cargo over the next 5 minutes and 35 seconds, with engine cutoff coming at 8 minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff. After a short coast phase, the Dragon spacecraft separated from the second stage and was flying freely, only nine and a half minutes after taking to the skies above SLC-40.

The first order of business for the Dragon is to deploy its twin solar panels to power the spacecraft and its systems. It will spend the next three days slowly raising its orbit as it rendezvous with the ISS, where it should be captured by the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, which will be operated by NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold.

The CRS-15 mission marks SpaceX’s twelfth flight of 2018, with up to another sixteen on the launch manifest slated for the remainder of the year. The company’s next scheduled launch is the seventh Iridium NEXT mission, currently set for July 20, 2018.

SpaceX was awarded an estimated $1.6 billion to carry out 12 resupply missions to the orbiting lab in 2008. Three additional missions were added to the Phase 1 contract of this program in 2015.

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative. </s> SpaceX’s CRS-11 launch on Saturday was a success, bringing a Dragon spacecraft loaded down with nearly 6,000 lbs of supplies and research equipment on board to orbit. The twist was that SpaceX already sent this Dragon capsule up to resupply the International Space Station once before – back in September 2014, when it carried cargo to the ISS prior to being recovered and refurbished post-mission.

The successful relaunch of a recycled Dragon is another historic milestone for SpaceX, which is aiming to reuse various parts of its launch and spacecraft equipment in order to help lower the cost of getting stuff to space. This is key to its aim of making launching a lucrative and profitable business, and also to it achieving its goal of flying missions, including crewed operations, to Mars.

After SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (not a reused one, this time) delivered the Dragon to orbit, it decoupled from the craft about 10 minutes after the original liftoff, and then deployed its solar wings to harvest energy for the rest of its trip to the ISS.

The Dragon will attempt to dock with the ISS around 36 hours from launch, when space station crew will attempt to capture the craft using the facility’s 57.7-foot Canadian-made robotic arm. If this Dragon completes the rest of its mission as planned, it’ll be recovered, refurbished and hopefully reused in a future mission

SpaceX is working on Dragon 2, a capsule designed to bring crew to and from the ISS, and hopes to run test flights with astronauts on board beginning next year.

This mission included an attempt to recover the used Falcon 9 first stage, which was a success. The landing was pretty text-book from all appearances, with the rocket touching down without issue at SpaceX’s LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force base.
SpaceX successfully launches CRS-16 on its way to the International Space Station. The first stage crashes into the ocean near Cape Canaveral and is later recovered.