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SpaceX: Falcon Heavy rocket launch and landing

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SpaceX launches Falcon Heavy and lands all three rocket boosters for the first time. Pictures: SpaceX

The world's most powerful rocket ship has made history.

The craft, named Falcon Heavy was built by the SpaceX company.

It took off, delivered a satellite into orbit and then, incredibly, landed all three of its booster rockets back to Earth.

At take-off, the Falcon Heavy soared from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, using the same launch pad that shot Apollo astronauts to the Moon 50-years-ago.

The rocket is the most powerful in use today, with 27 engines firing at liftoff — nine per booster, taking off with the force of 18 passenger planes.

What is SpaceX and who is Elon Musk?
  • SpaceX is a private space company that aims to make carrying stuff into space cheaper.

  • SpaceX was set up in 2002 by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is the boss of electric car maker Tesla.

  • SpaceX hope to launch space tourism with trips into orbit and the moon.

The spaceship delivered a communication satellite into orbit for Saudi company, Arabsat.

This successful mission follows last year's first launch - a test that saw billionaire SpaceX boss Elon Musk send his own car into orbit.

During the test flight last year, the two side boosters were recovered, but the central booster crashed when three of the engines failed, causing it to crash into the sea at 300 mph!

Image source, SpaceX
Image caption,

SpaceX owner Elon Musk sent his own car into space

This time all the boosters came back safely which makes this the first fully successful mission for the Falcon Heavy.

Two of the boosters landed in Cape Canaveral in Florida and the third booster landed on an off-shore drone ship.