The launch marks the first of two this weekend for SpaceX, which has another planned for take off from Vendenberg Air Force Base in California on Sunday.</s>Watch live as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launches and attempts to deliver BulgariaSat-1 to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit. The launch is at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. According to SpaceX, BulgariaSat-1 is the first geostationary communications satellite in Bulgaria’s history. The rocket, Falcon 9, will attempt a landing on the “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, according to SpaceX.</s>On June 23, 2017, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the BulgariaSat-1 satellite into orbit—the first geostationary communications satellite in Bulgaria’s history. This mission marked the second reflight of a Falcon 9 first stage, having previously supported the Iridium-1 mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base in January of this year.

Following stage separation, the first stage of Falcon 9 successfully landed on SpaceX’s East Coast droneship “Of Course I Still Love You,” stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This marks the first time a Falcon 9 first stage has landed on both SpaceX’s East and West coast droneships, having previously landed on “Just Read the Instructions” in the Pacific Ocean.</s>LOSANGELES-SpaceX has successfully launched and landed a recycled Falcon 9 rocket for the second time. The rocket’s first stage the 14-story-tall core that houses the fuel and the rocket’s main engines touched down on one of the company’s autonomous drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after taking off from a launch pad at nearby Cape Canaveral, Florida. It’s the 12th time SpaceX has successfully landed one of these rocket stages out of 17 attempts, and the seventh time it’s performed the feat at sea.

This particular rocket previously flew in January, when it was used to put 10 satellites into orbit for communications company Iridium. The rocket then landed on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX retrieved the rocket and spent the next few months refurbishing it in preparation for today’s launch. This afternoon, it was used to launch Bulgaria’s first communications satellite for TV service provider Bulsatcom. The landing wasn’t easy, though. Because the rocket had to push BulgariaSat-1 to such a high orbit, the first stage experienced more force and heat during reentry than any other Falcon 9, according to a tweet from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Musk even warned that there was a “good chance the rocket booster doesn’t make it back.” Shortly after the landing, though, Musk returned to Twitter to add that the rocket booster used “almost all of the emergency crush core,” which helps soften the landing. It was the first time SpaceX has landed one rocket on both of its drone ships.

Being able to reuse parts of the Falcon 9 rocket has long been a goal for Musk. He’s been trying to get the company to a point where it can reuse things like the rocket’s main stage, or the payload fairing (the cone at the top), instead of building a new rocket for each new launch.

Reusing rockets is a great way to bring down launch costs; previously, they were discarded after each launch, and building them from scratch costs millions of dollars.

To that end, SpaceX launched and landed a reused Falcon 9 for the first time back in March, and it also recovered that rocket’s fairing a first for the company. Then, earlier this month, SpaceX sent a used Dragon cargo capsule back to space for the first time ever.

But it’s the company’s strides towards sticking these rocket landings that finally made this all possible. While many of its early landing attempts were met with fiery ends, SpaceX hasn’t lost a rocket in a landing attempt since early last summer. With today’s success, the company has now landed eight rockets in a row dating back to that June explosion, save for a few launches where there wasn’t enough leftover fuel for a landing attempt.</s>SpaceX successfully launched another Falcon 9 rocket for the eighth time in 2017 this Friday, June 23, matching last year's total flight number. Another launch is scheduled on Sunday, June 25, which will put the organization on track with its goal to launch a total of 20 to 24 missions this year.

(Photo: Reuters/Gene Blevins)A photo of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Jason-3 spacecraft onboard at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in January 2016.

The BulgariaSat-1 mission launched on Friday, at 3:10 p.m. Several minutes later, the rocket's first stage safely landed on the floating platform located in the Atlantic Ocean. The upper stage of the rocket carried a Bulgarian geostationary communications satellite designed and built by Space System Loral (SSL), and put it into orbit.

"BulgariaSat-1 is designed based on SSL's proven 1300 series platform and it will provide service in the Balkans, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and the Caucasus with its highpower European beam," SpaceX stated in a news release.

"In addition, BulgariaSat-1 is equipped with a spot beam which can be used to provide extra capacity over the Balkans. The satellite is designed to provide service for 15 years or longer," the organization explained.

"BulgariaSat-1 is the first geostationary communications satellite in Bulgaria's history," SpaceX added.

The Falcon 9 rocket that launched on Friday was previously deployed back in January from the Vandenberg Air Force Base located in California. After its launch at the time, the rocket landed to a platform in the Pacific. This means that Friday's successful launch is the second time SpaceX has successfully sent a used rocket stage to space that made it back to Earth safely.

SpaceX relaunched a previously-used rocket for the first time this March. At the time, it took around 11 months since it first landed to prepare the rocket for reuse. However, for the Falcon 9 rocket that departed and returned on Friday, there was only about six months in between the first and second scheduled launches, indicating that the turnaround was quicker this time.

The successful launch and landing of a reused rocket marks the beginning of SpaceX's plan to reduce the cost of traveling to space through the reuse of rocket pieces.</s>SpaceX had another successful satellite launch and recycled rocket landing on Friday.The Hawthorne-based company sent a commercial communications satellite into orbit. The trip marked the second time SpaceX has used the first stage of a Falcon 8 rocket. Recycling equipment is important to the company's efforts to lower costs.The rocket that carried the satellite, called BulgariaSat-1, into orbit launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida around noon. The Falcon 9 rocket was piloted back to Earth and landed in the Atlantic Ocean minutes after it took off.SpaceX will launch more mass communications satellites on Sunday.</s>SpaceX has successfully launched a Falcon 9 to orbit during its BulgariaSat-1 mission Friday. The launch reused a first stage booster first employed during an Iridium Communications mission in January of this year, after that Falcon 9 first stage was recovered and refurbished.

The mission on Friday was to delivery Bulgaria’s first ever geostationary communications satellite into orbit, so that it could begin operations broadcast communication networks and HDTV signals for clients on Earth in parts of Europe. The satellite was built by SSL out of Palo Alto, California.

The first stage also landed successfully on the company’s drone ship in the Atlantic ocean, “Of course I still love you,” making it the first ever to have successfully landed on both of SpaceX’s two ocean-borne drone landing vessels. That recovery was also the most challenging successful landing so far for SpaceX, because of launch conditions.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk warned on Twitter prior to the launch that the Falcon 9 used would “experience its highest ever reentry force” during today’s launch, along with record levels of heat, making it less likely that SpaceX will be able to successfully recover the rocket for reuse this time around. In fact, Musk said there’s a “good chance” they don’t get the rocket back.

The launch from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center is the second ever re-use of an orbital rocket, after SpaceX successfully completed its first reflight of recycled Falcon 9 first stage back in March.

The primary mission was also a success, with SpaceX deploying the BulgariaSat-1 satellite into geostationary transfer orbit as of around 3:45 PM EDT. Next up, SpaceX will attempt its Iridium-2 mission launch on Sunday, June 25.</s>New Delhi: In a mission that marked the company's second launch of a reused rocket's first stage, SpaceX successfully flagged off its Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Bulgarian communications satellite.

The BulgariaSat-1, sitting tight aboard the Falcon 9, lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday, SpaceNews reported. The spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9's second stage 35 minutes after lift-off.

The first stage landed on a SpaceX drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after what SpaceX cautioned would be a "super challenging" landing attempt due to the high reentry loads for this particular flight profile.

Due to an error, the video from the drone ship cut out shortly before the landing, but was restored several seconds later, showing the stage upright, but leaning slightly, having landed slightly off-center.

"Rocket is extra toasty and hit the deck hard (used almost all of the emergency crush core), but otherwise good," SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted shortly after the landing.

He had tweeted prior to the launch that, because of the high reentry loads, there was a "good chance (the rocket booster doesn't make it back".

This launch marked the second time that SpaceX has reflown a Falcon 9 first stage, after the March launch of the SES-10 satellite.

The first stage for this launch first flew in January on a launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying 10 Iridium Next satellites into orbit before landing on a ship offshore.

BulgariaSat selected SSL to build BulgariaSat-1 in September 2014, a deal that also included the SpaceX launch.

The satellite, with an estimated mass of 4,000 kg, carries a total of 32 Ku-band transponders to provide fixed and broadcast satellite services and has a planned 15-year lifetime.</s>In the first of two rapid-fire weekend launches, a Falcon 9 rocket using a previously flown first stage boosted Bulgaria’s first communications satellite into orbit Friday, clearing the way for another SpaceX flight Sunday, this one from California, to put 10 Iridium telephone relay stations into space.

The first stage launched Friday first flew in January when it helped boost another set of Iridium comsats into an orbit around Earth’s poles before flying back to a pinpoint touchdown on an off-shore droneship.

It pulled off the same feat Friday, landing on a different droneship stationed a few hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral, despite a high trajectory needed by the satellite payload and the most extreme re-entry heating and stress yet experienced by a returning booster.

In fact, SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted before launch there was a “good chance (the) rocket booster doesn’t make it back.” It did, but the booster landed hard and appeared slightly tilted to one side, using up most of the shock absorbing material in its landing legs.

“Rocket is extra toasty and hit the deck hard (used almost all of the emergency crush core), but otherwise good,” Musk tweeted.

The successful launch and recovery — the second time the California rocket builder has launched and recovered a first stage — is evidence of the growing maturity of the company’s on-going effort to reduce launch costs by recovering, refurbishing and relaunching major rocket components.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 record now stands at 36 successful launches, one in-flight failure, one on-pad failure and 12 successful first-stage recoveries in 17 attempts, including the last eight in a row.

The successful launch and landing should clear the way for SpaceX to fire off another Falcon 9 on Sunday, this one using brand new stages, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., carrying a second set of 10 Iridium NEXT satellite telephone stations.

It will be the second of seven such flights to put 70 of the compact satellites into orbit as Iridium upgrades its constellation of telephone-and-data relay stations.

For Bulsatcom, the company that paid $235 million to Space Systems/Loral to build, insure and launch BulgariaSat 1, Friday’s launching marked a major milestone. The Ku-band satellite will provide television programming across the Balkans.

“The project is of a big size for small country, and a relatively small company by world standards,” Maxim Zayakov, CEO of BulgariaSat and Bulsatcom, told Spaceflight Now. “We now have about 900,000 subscribers between Bulgaria and the adjacent country of Serbia, and that is something, but in the grand scheme of things, compared with large companies, we’re not that big.”

As such, he said, “the satellite is a huge thing. It’s a big milestone and gives us a chance for … more presence in the region, as well as throughout Europe, where we have our main coverage. And for the country, definitely, it’s the first geostationary communications satellite.”

He said SpaceX’s ability to recover and relaunch boosters will lower costs across the industry and that “really is a big deal.”

“People don’t realize that, for small countries and small companies like us, without SpaceX, there was no way we would ever be able to even think about space,” he said. “With them, it was possible. We got a project. I think, in the future, it’s going to be even more affordable because of reusability.”

The mission got underway at 3:10 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) when the Falcon 9’s nine Merlin 1D engines ignited and throttled up to full power, pushing the 1.2-million-pound rocket away from pad 39A atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust. After initially climbing straight up, the booster arced gracefully away to the east and disappeared from view over the Atlantic Ocean.

Two minutes and 40 seconds later, after pushing the 229-foot-tall vehicle out of the thick lower atmosphere, the first stage engines shut down and the stage fell away to begin its descent to the droneship “Of Course I Still Love You.” The single engine powering the Falcon 9’s second stage continued pushing BulgariaSat 1 to space.

The first stage, meanwhile, 1fired three of its engines to slow down, oriented itself tail first and fell back into the atmosphere, deploying four stabilizing “grid fins” at the top of the booster to help maintain the proper orientation.

Three engines then re-ignited as the rocket approached the droneship, four landing legs deployed and the stage settled to a landing on the “Of Course I Still Love You” eight-and-a-half minutes after launch.

The second stage engine fired for nearly six minutes in the first of two burns required to put BulgariaSat 1 into the proper elliptical orbit. A second one-minute five-second firing completed the job and 35 minutes after takeoff, the 8,100-pound spacecraft was released to fly on its own in an orbit with a high point of around 37,000 miles.

On-board thrusters will be used to put the satellite into a circular orbit 22,300 miles above the equator where it will appear to hang stationary in the sky above the Balkans. After tests and checkout, Zayakov said, the satellite should be ready to enter service in early August.

With BulgariaSat 1 safely on its way, SpaceX will turn its attention to Sunday’s launch from Vandenberg.

Liftoff from pad 4-East is targeted for 4:25 p.m. EDT. Because of the weight of the 10-satellite payload, an on-time launching is required or the flight will be delayed at least 24 hours.

As with Friday’s flight, SpaceX plans to land the Iridium first stage on another whimsically named droneship, the “Just Read The Instructions,” stationed due south of Vandenberg.

SpaceX plans to launch another Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center in July to put an Intelsat communications satellite into orbit.

The rapid-fire launch schedule over the past two months reflects SpaceX’s drive to work off a backlog of satellites delayed by earlier problems, including a Sept. 1 launch pad explosion that destroyed a Falcon 9 and its satellite payload at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.</s>This mission is called BulgariaSat-1 and will carry Bulgaria's first geostationary communications satellite into a high geostationary orbit around the Earth. It's launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and a drone ship called "Of Course I Still Love You" will be waiting in the Atlantic Ocean for the Falcon 9's first-stage landing. If things don't go as planned, there's another launch window tomorrow at 2:10 PM ET.

This isn't the only SpaceX launch that's happening this weekend, though. On Sunday, a Falcon 9 will lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying 10 satellites for the company Iridium. Liftoff is set for 1:25 PM PT, and the company will once again attempt to land the first stage of the rocket.

It's not the first time SpaceX has flown and landed a flight-proven rocket; that happened on March 30. But rockets are the most expensive part of spaceflight; by reusing Falcon 9 first stages, SpaceX is cutting costs considerably. Reusable components are crucial to the future of human spaceflight, and SpaceX is certainly making steady and significant improvements in that regard.

Update, 6/23/2017, 1:05 PM: SpaceX tweeted that the ground team is taking additional time for checks. New liftoff time is 3:10 PM ET.
SpaceX launches BulgariaSat-1, Bulgaria's first ever geostationary communications satellite, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket, which successfully lands on an autonomous spaceport drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.