PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. – Leaning noticeably due to damage sustained when it landed nearly a week ago, the first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket returned safely to Port Canaveral this afternoon.
"Rocket back at port after careful ocean transit," SpaceX said in a tweet. "Leaning back due to crush core being used up in landing legs."
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News 6 partner Florida Today reports the Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:39 p.m. last Friday, on a mission that delivered the Thaicom 8 satellite to orbit.
The 14-story booster touched down about 10 minutes later on a ship stationed more than 400 miles off the Florida coast.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said at the time that the rocket landed at close to the maximum speed it could handle, using up the honeycomb "crush core" designed to absorb the shock.
"Easy to replace (if Falcon makes it back to port)," Musk said on Twitter.
Musk noted that the rocket was at risk of tipping over. But crews managed to secure it to the deck of SpaceX's football field-sized "drone ship," welding steel shoes around its four landing legs' feet.
The return to port was a slow one, apparently to minimize stress on the booster.
At its Port Canaveral dock, SpaceX will hook the rocket up to a crane and remove its landing legs before transporting it to a hangar at Kennedy Space Center for inspections, a process likely to take days.
The booster is the third SpaceX that has landed at sea and fourth overall as it works to make rockets reusable, a development  Musk believes will revolutionize the launch industry.
Musk hopes to re-fly a booster for the first time within months.
The boosters that returned to port today and last month sustained more damage than the others, after launching higher-speed missions to higher orbits.
SpaceX is targeting another commercial satellite launch and ocean landing as soon as mid-June.
Next up from Cape Canaveral is a planned June 9 launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying a National Reconnaissance Office mission.