SpaceX launched almost 5,500 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station on Sunday morning after scrubbing its Saturday attempt because of a potential issue with its Falcon 9 rocket.
The rocket lifted off at 6:39 a.m. PST from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the space company's first launch from Launch Complex 39A, the pad where the Apollo and space shuttle missions launched.
About eight minutes after liftoff, the first-stage rocket booster landed back on land at the company's Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
"Baby came back," SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted, followed by a snapshot of the return landing.
The Dragon spacecraft, which is carrying the supplies, deployed about 10 minutes after launch. It is set to arrive at the space station early Wednesday morning.
Saturday's launch was postponed just 13 seconds before liftoff so SpaceX could look into a potential issue with the thrust vector control system on the rocket's second stage.
Shortly after, the company tweeted that it would take a closer look at the positioning of the second-stage engine nozzle.
Musk said on Twitter on Saturday that all systems were go for launch, except that "the movement trace of an upper stage engine steering hydraulic piston was slightly odd."
He tweeted that the company wanted to make sure it wasn't "symptomatic of a more significant upstream root cause."
"99 percent likely to be fine," Musk tweeted. "But that 1 percent chance isn't worth rolling the dice. Better to wait a day."
This was the company's second launch since a launch pad explosion in September destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket and a commercial communications satellite.
Musk said Saturday's potential problem was "not obviously related" to a "very small" helium leak Friday that he said that the company was investigating. But it also was "not out of the question," he tweeted.
This was SpaceX's 10th mission to deliver supplies to the space station for NASA .
