The used Falcon 9 rocket took off on a satellite delivery mission from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday.
The booster's main section then separated from the rest of the rocket and flew itself back to a landing pad in the Atlantic, where it successfully touched down for its second return.
It was previously used on a mission in April last year and refurbished and tested on its return, still sporting its nine original engines.
There have been several other successful vertical landings, but none of these rockets had been reused until now. Thursday, SpaceX launched a geostationary communications satellite using a refurbished first stage Falcon 9 booster. The launch not only successfully inserted the satellite into orbit, but the booster again landed as planned on a floating platform located in deep water off the Florida coast.
So, these successes are technically satisfying, but are they important? They most certainly are. In fact, they could be a game-changer.
The reason is simple. The price of the fuel is only about 1% of the total cost of a rocket launch. The rest is the rocket itself, with 70% of the price tied up in the first stage of the booster. Being able to reuse the rocket represents a huge cost savings. Industry estimates suggest that reusing the first stage of the Falcon 9 booster might lead to a 30% reduction in the launch costs.
Thus, the typical cost of a SpaceX launch of $62 million might be reduced to $43 million -- a considerable contribution to the satellite company's bottom line. The cost of Thursday's launch has not been released, but SES, the company owning the satellite that was launched, has said they were interested in an even lower price of $30 million for this first attempt.
"This is a huge day. My mind's blown, frankly," said SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
He described it as an "incredible milestone in the history of space" and predicted, "this is going to be a huge revolution in space flight".