Last week, when SpaceX successfully launched six Orbcomm satellites on top of its Falcon 9 rocket, the company also tested out its system to attempt a "soft landing" of the first stage of the rocket. This was part of a series of tests that the company is doing in hopes of making the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket reusable. If it's successful at this, SpaceX could potentially cut tens of millions of dollars of the cost of its launches.
Yesterday, the company announced that its test of the the Falcon 9's first stage had been successful. This marks the second time that it has successfully "soft landed" a reusable Falcon 9 stage in the ocean. The first was in April of this year.
So what constitutes a successful test? according to SpaceX, the reusable rocket stage was able to "reenter from space at hypersonic velocity, restart main engines twice, deploy landing legs and touch down at near zero velocity."
As it was over the surface of the water, the rocket tipped itself horizontally in the hopes that it might survive intact to be recovered. However, the water breached the rocket hull, eliminating the recovery possibility. Despite this, SpaceX insists that it has enough data for further tests.
"At this point," the company said in a statement. "we are highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment."
SpaceX's next several launches will require too much fuel to test the reusable stage again, but after that, it intends three launches to test the system. The first will be another water landing. The next two will involve landing the reusable first stage on a solid surface.
You can watch the footage of Falcon 9's soft landing below:
