On December 22, 2015, spaceX made history by successfully put the payload into orbit, and returned the first stage safely back to earth and landed upright.
The vertical landing is in response to the challenge in flying reusable Falcon 9 Rocket:
http://aviationweek.com/blog/nasa-cnes-warn-spacex-challenges-flying-reusable-falcon-9-rocket
The Falcon 9 is already the lowest-cost rocket on the commercial market today. It is able to launch 5 million grams (4,850 kg) of payload to supersynchronous transfer orbit at roughly $60 million per launch, better than the Chinese Long March 3B at $70 million. The cost will be further lowered if they could reuse it as they've said the first stage is roughly 70% of the cost and just refueling the rocket costs about 0.3% of a full launch. Therefore, the potential to lower the cost is huge if they could pull off the vertical landing! That's why!!
The vertical landing is in response to the challenge in flying reusable Falcon 9 Rocket:
http://aviationweek.com/blog/nasa-cnes-warn-spacex-challenges-flying-reusable-falcon-9-rocket
The Falcon 9 is already the lowest-cost rocket on the commercial market today. It is able to launch 5 million grams (4,850 kg) of payload to supersynchronous transfer orbit at roughly $60 million per launch, better than the Chinese Long March 3B at $70 million. The cost will be further lowered if they could reuse it as they've said the first stage is roughly 70% of the cost and just refueling the rocket costs about 0.3% of a full launch. Therefore, the potential to lower the cost is huge if they could pull off the vertical landing! That's why!!
The vertical landing made such a great splash that they shadowed the successful launch of 11 satellites into the orbit. People also forgot that it was the secondary target. The first being the successful launch. It is amusing to see this "been there, done that" kind of attitude. The primary target is already so risky, but since it has been achieved in the past, people are more interested in the secondary target. :) Here is the full video, enjoy!
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