SpaceX just made history.

[Sgt Beavis]

SpaceX successfully LANDED the 1st stage of their Falcon9 rocket after launching 11 satellites into orbit.

The 1st stage launched the payload to an altitude of 100 miles before the 2nd stage took over. The 1st stage then flew back to Cape Canaveral and landed on a new landing pay SpaceX built a short time ago.

This changes space flight forever. 90% of the costs for space flight is in the hardware. If you can reuse the rocket, you can drastically reduce costs.

[Sgt Beavis]

Pictures from Twitter:

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/679114269485436928

[03mustangdude]

dahm i missed it had my alarm set to wrong hour. Awesome though

[Sgt Beavis]

Video! Landing cycle shows up at 1:10..

[Craizie]

That was fucking awesome.

[Ruffdaddy]

I thought some other company did that last year?

[Craizie]

I thought some other company did that last year?

Negative-ish.

[Sgt Beavis]

I thought some other company did that last year?

Last month, Jeff Bezos' company launched a suborbital rocket to 60miles altitude and landed it. Technically, that is into space, but it never got over mach 3. The Falcon9 booster was going about Mach 7 and had an altitude of 100 miles before the 2nd stage took over.

[Ruffdaddy]

So blue origin did win. The challenge was landing the thing from space...not speed or distance.

[Ruffdaddy]

Also, by last year i meant last month

[Sgt Beavis]

So blue origin did win. The challenge was landing the thing from space...not speed or distance.

Technically, yes. However their rocket isn't capable of putting anything into orbit. It has no bearing on space exploration. Whereas this has a huge impact on it.

[Craizie]

Beavis gets it.

[347Mike]

[sig239]

Beavis gets it.

[Sgt Beavis]

Musk said that this booster won't be flying again. They are going to take it back to the launch pad and conduct a static fire. Then they are going to tear it down to see how it did structurally. Makes sense. They need to see where the structural wear and tear is at (if there is any) so they can strengthen it and make the next one good to go for reuse. It soundds like the current one will become a museum peice after SpaceX does all of its testing.

Musk also said they want to fly a reused booster sometime in 2016.

In other news, SpaceX is still on course to fly a manned mission in 2017.