Watch the SpaceX staff respond to its historic rocket landing

“Welcome back, baby!”, SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted shortly after touchdown.

Last night will remain in history as the first time anyone – private company or government body – has ever launched a rocket in orbit, then safely landed it on Earth. But Falcon 9 is much larger than New Shepard and went twice as high, making it more of a landmark feat when it comes to reusing rockets that could be used for missions such as re-supplying the ISS.

SpaceX completed its historic rocket landing Monday night, but Jeff Bezos says he got there first.

SpaceX, the vaunted rocket company owned by investor and entrepreneur Elon Musk, reemerged months after a crash with its best success yet.

On the SpaceX webcast, one person said it was like “launching a pencil over the Empire State Building, having it reverse, come back down, and land on a shoebox on the ground during a windstorm”. The ability to launch and recover these rockets is important, because it will help to lower the cost of space travel, which aids in Musk’s and SpaceX’s ultimate goal of colonizing Mars. SpaceX deployed 11 satellites for ORBCOMM with the rest of its rocket – which gives a very clear blueprint for the future of reusable rockets. Welcome to the club!

Speaking to the press following the Falcon 9’s landing, Musk said: “It’s a revolutionary moment”.

Traditionally, rockets are disposed of after they detach from the space shuttle.

A remodeled version of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the launchers first mission since a June failure in Cape Canaveral, Florida, December 21, 2015. Reusable rockets could save companies hundreds of millions of dollars in launch costs.

The latest rocket launched by SpaceX named Falcon 9 v1. “It’s the first one we’ve brought back”. The rockets fell over and exploded both times.