SpaceX launch: Incredible pictures show Elon Musk's reusable Falcon 9 rocket blasting off for 50th time

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These incredible images show SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket blasting off into orbit for the 50th time.

Spectacular pictures of the event show a bus-sized Spanish satellite strapped to the rocket as it lights up the morning sky over its launch pad on its journey out of the atmosphere.

Stunning footage also showed the huge rocket creating a huge trail of smoke and fire as it blasted through the sky from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The impressive milestone launch by billionaire business magnate Elon Musk’s private rocket firm on Tuesday was reached in less than eight years.

After the reusable rocket shoots into space, its boosters return to earth and land on one of SpaceX’s drone ships in the middle of the ocean.

This time however no attempt was made to recover the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster as the waves offshore were too rough for a barge landing.

Once the Falcon 9 releases satellites into orbit it returns to Earth to land on one of the privately-owned firm’s designated ground-based landings zones.

Mr Musk said the communications satellite for Spain's Hispasat corporation that was attached to the rocket this week is the “largest geostationary satellite we’ve ever flown”.

The rocket blasted off into space on Tuesday
SpaceX

The Hispasat 30W-6 satellite was successfully offloaded into orbit just 33 minutes after the launch from Earth, SpaceX said in statement.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifts off early on Tuesday
AFP/Getty Images

The Spanish commercial communications satellite will orbit the earth providing signals to TVs, broadband networks and other communications services in Europe, North Africa and the Americas.

It comes after Space X's Falcon Heavy - the world's most powerful rocket - made history last month as it blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida in front of cheering crowds.

Despite the rocket missing its Mars orbit and shooting off towards an asteroid field, Musk urged other rocket companies to join him in a “new space race” as he boasted of the mission.

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