SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lands upright on Earth

The Falcon 9’s thruster has landed upright on the launch pad of space company SpaceX at Cape Canaveral in Florida. It is the first time that a landing with the first stage of the Falcon 9 went completely well.

On April 14, 2015, it seemed almost successful to land a rocket on a special ‘drone platform’ in the sea, but that did not go well. In the retry, the rocket landed on a new platform, Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral. It is also the first rocket launched by SpaceX since the previous one’s detonation in June. SpaceX postponed the launch last Saturday due to problems with the rocket.

Stage one has landed

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) Dec 22, 2015

The rocket is not the first to land, that honor went to Blue Origin with the New Shepard, but the Blue Origin goes less deep into space, so that the speed at which it returns to Earth is much lower.

The rocket used is a modified version of its predecessor, namely the Falcon 9 v1.1 Full Thrust, previously known internally as Falcon 9 v1.2 or Enhanced Falcon 9. The rocket launched eleven satellites into Orbcomm’s space. Landing the thruster was less important than getting the satellites into low Earth orbit. With the return of the rocket, a large amount is saved. According to SpaceX, filling the rocket with fuel costs just $200,000, while building the rocket costs about $16 million. However, the thruster that made a successful landing in the current attempt will not be used again.