They did it! SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sticks droneship landing

The Falcon 9 first stage booster from SpaceX's CRS-8 launch stands proudly upright on the deck of the "Of Course I Still Love You." Credit: SpaceX

Friday, April 8, 2016, 6:02 PM - To cap off a perfect SpaceX launch of their Dragon cargo craft to the International Space Station, they finally successfully landed the rocket first stage on their ocean-going droneship!

Today, Friday, April 8, at 4:43 p.m. EDT, SpaceX's unpiloted Dragon cargo ship lifted off from Cape Canaveral, on the company's 8th delivery to the International Space Station.

Shortly thereafter, they accomplished what some thought impossible: the first stage of the Falcon 9 booster rocket successfully landed on the droneship "Of Course I Still Love You," which was stationed out in the Atlantic Ocean!

Watch a replay of the launch and landing via SpaceX's CRS-8 Dragon Technical Webcast, embedded below (skip ahead to 35:55 to see the landing!).

Sticking the landing!

Landing a rocket back on Earth after a space launch is no easy task. This schematic shows the entire process, from lift off and deployment of the payload, to the return and touch-down of the rocket's first stage.

The launch and landing profile for the Falcon 9 rocket. Credit: SpaceX/S. Sutherland

Previous landing attempts have been disappointing, especially during the January 17 launch of the Jason-3 satellite. The rocket actually performed a perfect touch-down, until one of the landing legs failed to lock into position, causing the rocket to topple over and explode.

Given how close they've come, it seems it was only a matter of time before they succeeded, and now they have, as the short video below beautifully shows!

The Space Station is getting an expansion

Home renovations in space? The next cargo run by SpaceX, which is scheduled to launch on Friday, April 8, will be carrying something in the trunk - a new experiment known as BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module.

Designed to be attached to one of the ports on the station's modules, BEAM resembles a white hockey puck to start, but upon activation, it expands outward to provide an additional room for the station crew to use.

According to NASA:

Expandable habitats, occasionally described as inflatable habitats, greatly decrease the amount of transport volume for future space missions. These "expandables" weigh less and take up less room on a rocket while allowing additional space for living and working. They also provide protection from solar and cosmic radiation, space debris, and other contaminants.

By testing how these expansions work on the ISS, it will help pave the way to establishing habitats on the Moon, Mars and beyond!

In addition to BEAM, the space station is receiving a delivery of food and supplies, along with new science experiments for the crew to perform.

According to NASA:

The new experiments arriving to the station will help investigators study muscle atrophy and bone loss in space, use microgravity to seek insight into the interactions of particle flows at the nanoscale level and use protein crystal growth in microgravity to help in the design of new drugs to fight disease.

With the successful launch and landing, this moves SpaceX one step further to reliable reusable rocketry!

Sources: SpaceX | NASA | With files from The Weather Network

Watch it again! On December 22, 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket on dry land at Cape Canaveral.