PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Reserve Citizen Airmen assisted with the two-stage "Block 5" Falcon 9 successful launch Aug. 7, 2018 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Less than 9 minutes after the 1:18 a.m. liftoff, the rocket's first stage came back to Earth for a vertical touchdown on SpaceX's "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship, which was stationed a few hundred miles off the Florida coast.
Pave Hawk helicopter crew were tasked with clearing the Eastern Range underneath the rocket trajectory an hour before the launch.
The landing was the second for this particular first stage, which also pulled one off on May 11 during the first-ever flight of a Block 5 Falcon 9.