Spectacular SpaceX Space Station Launch and 1st Stage Landing – Photo/Video Gallery

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Sunday’s inaugural blastoff of a commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from historic pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Feb 19 proved to be space spectacular like none other along the Florida Space Coast, that will help path the path for eventual human journeys to the Red Planet.

The mission involved the successful liftoff of the two stage Falcon 9/Dragon vehicle aimed at delivering over 2.5 tons of critical science and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) – coupled with the first ever daylight ground landing of the spent first stage booster back at Cape Canaveral.

Under completely cloudy and scattered showery skies, the 22 story tall Falcon 9 propelled a SpaceX cargo Dragon to low Earth orbit.

Thus began a three day orbital chase to the orbiting lab complex culminating with a rendezvous and Dragon berthing just hours from now on Wednesday morning, Feb 22.

Meanwhile the used 156 foot tall first stage maneuvered its way to a precision soft landing and upright touchdown on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL after dropping below the low hanging clouds just seconds before the final descent phase as the landing legs unfurled and locked firmly in place with engines eerily firing away.

The stunning events were captured by journalists and tourists gathered from across the globe.

Check out this expanding gallery of eyepopping photos and videos from several space journalist colleagues and friends and myself – for views you won’t see elsewhere.

Click back as the gallery grows !

Watch these launch videos compiled from the roof of NASA’s iconic Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and ringing around the Launch Complex 39A pad perimeter.

Video Caption: SpaceX Falcon9 launch of CRS-10 from historic Pad 39A at KSC on February 19, 2017 as seen by video cameras stationed on the VAB roof and at pad 39A. Credit: Jeff Seibert/AmericaSpace

Check out this amazing time-lapse video of the landing as seen from Port Canaveral, FL by Mary Ellen Jelen.

Video Caption: This is a stack of 99 photos shot from Exploration Tower in Port Canaveral, FL of the SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage landing on 19 Feb 2017 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Landing Zone 1. Photo Credit: Mary Ellen Jelen / We Report Space

Here is a sequence of landing shots taken by my colleagues and myself.

See additional photos by Trevor Mahlmann here:

http://photos.tmahlmann.com/Rockets/SpaceX/CRS-10/

Watch for Ken’s onsite CRS-10 mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

The post Spectacular SpaceX Space Station Launch and 1st Stage Landing – Photo/Video Gallery appeared first on Universe Today.