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SpaceX just landed its third rocket in a row on a wobbly ship at sea

spacex launch may 27 2016 flickr
SpaceX/Flickr (public domain)

From now on, we'll be surprised when SpaceX doesn't land one of its rockets.

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The company, owned by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has launched and safely touched down its third rocket on a droneship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Its 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket launched at at 5:40 p.m ET on Friday, sending the THIACOM 8 satellite on its way to an orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth (where it will provide internet and TV services for Southeast Asia):

But arguably the most important part of the launch happened before the satellite was deployed (which happened at 6:11 p.m. ET).

Moments after the rocket separated into two stages, the first stage came careening back down to Earth.

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Then it fired it's thrusters to slow down:

A live feed of the webcast cut out for a moment, but when it kicked back in, viewers saw the hulking rocket stage safely landed on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship:

This landing was particularly tricky because the rocket went high into geostationary orbit, like the last one did on May 6.

A rocket landing on April 8 landing — the first successful one on the ship — was a bit easier because that rocket only went up to the International Space Station 240 miles above the Earth. The very first successful landing was on land in December 2015.

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Sticking these landings is the most important part of making SpaceX's rockets reusable. The company can save millions of dollars if it doesn't have to start from scratch and build a whole new rocket every time.

Dave Mosher contributed to this report.

SpaceX Space
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