Almost 10 years to the day since it successfully landed its first rocket stage, SpaceX today (Dec. 14) recovered its 550th Falcon 9 booster.

The touchdown came after the rocket's first stage had lofted 27 Starlink satellites into space, lifting off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Sunday at 12:49 a.m. EST (0549 GMT or 9:49 p.m. PST local time on Dec. 13).

The Falcon 9 rocket's upper stage was on track to deploy the satellites into low Earth orbit about an hour after they left the ground.

T1TL-B |T1TL-C | 6 Starlink missions

Unlike the first Falcon 9 first stage landing in on Dec. 21, 2015, which arrived back on land, Sunday's booster (B1093) fired one of its nine Merlin engines and deployed its four landing legs to come to rest atop the a

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