How SpaceX lands the Falcon 9 rocket

It was the first time a rocket launched into orbit successfully made a controlled landing on Earth.

The concept of landing a rocket on an ocean platform has been around for decades but SpaceX’s earlier attempts failed repeatedly forcing the space agency to limit its expectation at 50% on December 21 when its Falcon 9 rocket successfully accomplished the target of re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and softlanding on a sea-pad with accuracy.

Monday’s landing turned that failure into success, though Musk admitted during the conference call that it’ll take several years to attain full reusability of rockets and, in turn, affordable flights. SpaceX has only managed to land part of the rocket.

We have had our fun around here watching Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk try to land his space rockets back on Earth, because he’s a real character and we love an underdog story.

Leading Edge Aerospace manufactures the tooling to produce the booster’s landing legs, which allow the rocket to land safely back on Earth.

“It’s a revolutionary moment”, Musk told reporters after the landing.

SpaceX employees erupted in jubilation as they watched live video footage of the white first-stage booster slowly descending upright through a damp, darkened night sky amid a glowing orange ball of light to make a picture-perfect landing.

Grady says that Blue Origin’s rocket “went nowhere near as high as the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket”.

You may recognise its founder, Elon Musk, as the eccentric entrepreneur behind PayPal and Tesla. It aims to resume supply missions to the space station in February.

It was a remarkable feat, a huge win for SpaceX and for the reusable rocket industry on the whole, in that the rockets will cut down on the costs of space travel significantly.

Reusable rockets would be great for them as they would only have to spend on the fuel and maintenance costs.

“No one has ever brought an orbital class booster back intact”. (Credit: SpaceX)A time-exposure photo shows the dominant streak left behind by the Falcon 9’s ascent, plus the two smaller streaks associated with the first-stage booster’s descent.