Rockets: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch & landing + China Long March 3B launches comm-sat

** SpaceX on Friday launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg AFB in California with 10 Iridium NEXT satellites. The first stage booster returned for a bulls-eye landing on a platform floating in the Pacific Ocean:

See also the full SpaceX webcast. Here is a video of Tim Dodd’s launch webcast:

Here are scenes from the SpaceX webcast showing the return and landing of the booster, though, as usually happens, the signal is interrupted as the rocket lands due to the plume shaking the platform:

** China on Thursday launched a Long March 3B rocket with the Zhongxing-2D/Chinasat-2D communications satellite going to a geostationary orbit:

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