SpaceX landed for the first time on the west coast [Updated]

10:35 pm ET Update: On Sunday night, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off as planned and climbed into space. After about three minutes, the second stage carried its payload towards the successful deployment of the SAOCOM 1A satellite into a Sun synchronous orbit.

After separating from the second leg, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket stopped moving forward and began to fall back to Earth. He also managed to land at a new site north of Los Angeles. It was the first time that a Falcon 9 rocket had landed on the West Coast and it was the 30th time that SpaceX had taken a first step in total.

Ars had photographer Trevor Mahlmann on site for the historic landings, and we will publish his photographs after he has retrieved his distant cameras.

Original post: The US Air Force has a message to the residents of the counties of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo: do not worry Sunday evening around 19:30 local time, if you hear a loud noise. This is only the sound boom of the first stage of a rocket, which returns from space and lands for the first time on a site located along the west coast of California.

On Sunday night, SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, two hours north of Los Angeles. Although the company has landed several first-stage boosters on a drone off California, it has so far not attempted to land on a coastal site. But now he has completed the installation "Landing Zone 4" and has received the necessary federal authorizations for the rockets to land vertically.

For the long-time employees of the company based in Hawthorne, California, there must be some satisfaction in this regard. More than ten years ago, while SpaceX was looking to launch its Falcon 1 rocket, the company had asked the air force to take off from Vandenberg. But the military and some of the companies that used these facilities to launch national security missions, including Lockheed Martin and Boeing, have coldly watched SpaceX's demands. Now, SpaceX has built a landing zone on the former Space Launch Complex 4W site, where Titan rockets built by Lockheed had been launched before.

It will be the 17th SpaceX^th launch attempt this year, bringing the company to a record 18 launches last year. With nearly half a dozen launch attempts this year, SpaceX is expected to easily surpass its 2017 total, barring a major accident.

This block 5 of the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket had already flown once before, launching 10 Iridium NEXT satellites in a polar orbit 625 km above the Earth. He returned to a drone off the west coast after this flight. The satellite SAOCOM 1A of the Argentine Space Agency, launched Sunday night, weighs less than many Falcon payloads 9 launched in a Sun synchronous orbit several hundred kilometers from the Earth. Therefore, the first stage will have enough fuel to return to the new coastal landing site.

SpaceX should also try to recover half of the payload fairing of the Falcon 9 rocket. It nearly caught them with its large catch-mitten-shaped net attached to a boat, but it has not yet successful. (Update: There will be no attempt to retrieve the payload fairing according to the SpaceX webcast).

For the Sunday night attempt, the instant launch window opens at 7:21 pm (2:21 am on Monday). The landing (and the sonic booms) should take place less than eight minutes later. An emergency launch window is available on Thursday evening at the same time. The webcast below should begin about 15 minutes before the window opens Sunday night.

Trevor Mahlmann / Special Screening Image for Ars