Payload launched, rocket returns, lands

Elon Musk’s SpaceX showcased his dream of reusable rockets by landing a Falcon 9 booster upright on a Cape Canaveral, Fla., landing zone after lofting a payload of satellites toward orbit.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. pulled off the soft, vertical touchdown minutes after the two-stage rocket propelled its payload of 11 Orbcomm Inc. satellites aloft. It was the company’s first flight since a fiery blast destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket in June minutes after lift off.

Monday’s mission helped validate Musk’s vision for lower-cost spaceflight and provides SpaceX a boost in his race with fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos to develop craft that can survive the fiery blast and return to Earth to be reused. Instead of ditching the booster, SpaceX used thrusters and sophisticated navigation to steer it from space to Landing Zone 1, a former U.S. Air Force rocket and missile testing range.

Booster rockets have typically been left to tumble back to Earth after launch, leaving them broken up by the intense heat of re-entering the atmosphere. Landing them upright could help winnow the cost of access to space by a hundredfold, Musk has estimated, since the bulk of launch costs comes from building a rocket that flies only once.

Recycling engines and the Falcon 9’s 14-story, aluminum-lithium alloy first stage could enable SpaceX, already the cheapest launch provider in its category, to further undercut U.S. and European rivals. The Hawthorne, Calif.-based company’s standard launch cost is $61.2 million, according to its website.