SpaceX finally lands its Falcon 9 rocket after being launched

After months of testing, engineering and, I assume, copious amounts of caffeine consumption at SpaceX, the company founded by Elon Musk has at last managed to successfully land its Falcon 9 upright on solid ground. It’s the first time SpaceX has been able to gently touch down the Falcon 9 post-launch — something the company has been trying to do for the past year. As a result this marks a great leap towards reusable rockets.

SpaceX have unsuccessfully tried landing like this twice before. The first time was in January of this year and the second was in April, though those two landings were to be on floating platforms out to sea. Both rockets toppled and exploded on attempting to land.

This is also the first time SpaceX have launched a rocket since an attempt in June, when a rocket carrying supplies for the International Space Station exploded en route.

SpaceX have since made some changes, the first being landing on solid ground instead of a floating platform out to sea and the second was updating the design of the rocket; the new rocket has an updated structure and an upgraded engine, its been informally called Falcon 9 V1.1 Full Thrust.

As big as this is for SpaceX, it’s not the first time a vertical take-off rocket has landed upright after launching into space. In November, Jeff Bezos’ private space flight company Blue Origin announced that it had landed its rocket New Shepard post-launch. However, the Falcon 9 is more complex, much faster, and is designed to go further into space.

Congrats @SpaceX on landing Falcon's suborbital booster stage. Welcome to the club!

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 22, 2015

Right now, all rockets that travel into orbit are either destroyed or lost after taking off, something that isn’t economical as an entirely new rocket must be built for each launch. But if SpaceX can routinely reuse its rockets, the company saves the cost of manufacturing new vehicles for follow-up missions. That could make space flight a lot more affordable. SpaceX CEO Musk noted that it costs $16 million to manufacture the Falcon 9, but only $200,000 to fuel. With the success of the landing we can be sure that accountants and economists at SpaceX have smiles as big as the astronauts.