8 minutes after sending Shukla to space, Falcon 9 back on Earth
New Delhi: Less than eight minutes after the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying a four-member crew to the International Space Station - it returned safely to Earth. The Crew Dragon capsule containing the four astronauts, including Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the second Indian to go into space, continued on its way to the ISS.
The launch, delayed six times already, hovered on the edge of a seventh delay after a software glitch prevented upload of weather data. However, that was resolved with minutes to go and, a little past 12.01 pm (India time), the Falcon 9 rocket's powerful Merlin engines roared into life.
The rocket then slowly, but surely, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A - the spot from where Neil Armstrong set off for the moon on Apollo 11 in 1969. And, with that, the Axiom Mission 4, or AX-4, was successfully launched.
Falcon 9 rocket is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX.
It is the world's first orbital-class reusable rocket. This means SpaceX can re-use the most expensive parts of the rocket and that, in turn, drives down the cost of space missions.
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