June 14, 2016 Tuesday

3rd SpaceX rocket lands – level 3

Billionaire Elon Musk has done it again, successfully landing this SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a platform floating in the middle of the ocean. As the rocket's descent speeds up, things started to look a bit rocky, but then out of nowhere, this happened. The Falcon 9 held firm as jets brought it to rest on the aptly named “Of course I still love you” drone ship, making this the third successful landing for SpaceX in a row.

"Lift off for the Falcon 9."

The 70-meter-tall rocket was launched Friday afternoon to deliver Thaicom 8, a telecommunications satellite. After the satellite was in orbit, it took just 9 minutes for the rocket to be safe back on Earth.

SpaceX has a backlog of more than 10 billion dollars’ worth of launch orders from customers, including NASA. If it can keep landing and reusing rockets like this one, Elon Musk is going to be having a very big Christmas bonus.

Difficult words: float (to rest on water), descent (coming down), rocky (difficult or full of problems), aptly (suitably), in a row (in succession – happening one after another), launch (to go up, to start), backlog (work that you need to do).