SpaceX lands an orbital rocket booster, opening the reusable-rocket era

Date

21 December 2015

Category

Science, technology & invention

Region

United States

Era

Contemporary

Significance

On 21 December 2015, the private American company SpaceX landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket vertically at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after the booster had helped deliver eleven Orbcomm communications satellites to orbit.

It was the first time a rocket stage had returned to Earth and made a controlled, powered landing after an orbital launch. Recovering and reflying boosters, rather than discarding them after a single use, promised to cut the cost of access to space dramatically, a long-standing goal of spaceflight. SpaceX refined the technique with repeated landings on land and on autonomous ocean barges, first reflew a recovered booster in 2017, and made reuse routine. The achievement accelerated a broader commercial-spaceflight era in which private firms launch satellites, cargo and, from 2020, astronauts, reshaping an industry long dominated by government agencies. Falling launch costs enabled large satellite constellations and a surge of new space activity, while competitors worldwide pursued their own reusable-rocket programmes.

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Further reading

A Little History of Science

The wider story

A Little History of Science

William Bynum

Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.

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