A helicopter caught this epic footage of SpaceX’s rocket landing

Just under one month following the world’s first landing of a reusable rocket, which was accomplished by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin private space exploration company, SpaceX managed a similar feat.

The mission’s primary objective was to deploy 11 small satellites into low orbit. Historically, spent rocket stages have been unceremoniously jettisoned and lost at sea.

During an exciting 20-minute launch, landing, and satellite deployment, the gathered crowd at mission control cheered at every successful stage of the mission.

The craft, an American Falcon-9 SpaceX rocket, was carrying supplies of food and equipment to the astronauts on the space station. Earlier this year SpaceX tried to stick such a landing using a modified barge as a touchdown site, but failed at all three attempts.

The flight was the first for Musk’s California-based company since a rocket failure in June destroyed a cargo spaceship being carried on a resupply mission bound for the International Space Station. Monday’s launch was the first since SpaceX redesigned and upgraded the powerful rocket.

SpaceX is aiming to revolutionize the rocket industry, which up until now has lost millions of dollars in discarded machinery and valuable rocket parts after each launch.

The landing of the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in Cape Canaveral, Florida was met with the words: “The Falcon has landed”, on the SpaceX webcast.

The rocket actually put 11 satellites into space.

Musk had not responded to Bezos at the time of publication.

After the second stage of the rocket went into orbit with the satellites, the engines of the booster stage reignited to turn around, landing 10 minutes after launch.

“Welcome back, baby!” Musk wrote in a celebratory message he posted on Twitter. It remains to be known if the Falcon 9 is reusable after its landing.