March 6th CRS-20 to resupply the ISS

11:50 pm EST. from Space Launch Complex 40 at Canaveral Air Force Station

(pictured is the nebula - the first and second stage separating in the atmosphere.)

Friday, March 6th at 11:50 pm EST SpaceX celebrates a historic day as they successfully launch and land 50 orbital boosters. The mission - CRS-20, stands for Commercial Resupply Services. A resupply shipment of the International Space Station.

A nominal launch was witnessed, around nine minutes into flight the Falcon 9's second stage separated with the dragon capsule and rocketed towards the ISS. The dragon capsule itself has visited the space station twice previously, and the first stage booster once already.

SpaceX recovered the Falcon 9’s first stage on Landing Zone-1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force station, making this the first at land, landing in over a year.

(pictured above is the first stage making it's final landing burn and setting down on LZ-1)

CRS-20 marks the end of the Dragon 1 design. After this mission SpaceX will move to the Dragon 2 as part of phase two of the CRS program, which will be known as CRS-2. The Commercial Resupply Services program which uses commercially built vehicles to deliver cargo the the ISS awarded SpaceX a contract for twelve initial CRS missions back in 2008, later they extended the contract to twenty total missions.