A revolution in space flight – this evening SpaceX made history by landing the 1st stage of a Falcon 9 rocket after launching 11 satellites into space.

Space flight fundamentally changed this evening with the successful landing of the Falcon 9 V1.2 first stage for the Orbcomm 2 mission.  The mission also successfully deployed 11 communications satellites into orbit.

The key here is reusability. If you can reuse the first stage of a rocket, it significantly lowers the price of launch (since you recover a good portion of the vehicle). Lower cost of launch will make space flight much more common.

A massive congratulations to everyone at SpaceX tonight for making history!

Here is a gif of the landing:

Here is a gif (sped up) of the satellites separating:

Here is the landing video:

and here is the full webcast! Launch is at 32 minutes and landing of the 1st stage is at 41:45: