Using the floating barge in Florida as an example, all launches from Florida head East over the Atlantic Ocean; a barge in the sea reduces the travel distance back to Earth to perform a landing, as the rocket doesn't have to travel as far.
Landing Gear Currently, SpaceX rockets use 4 landing legs that are folded against the rocket's body during flight. These then fold out using gravity prior to landing.
"We had phenomenal shots [of the rocket] all the way through the landing burn." The landing sequence included three engine burns to slow the rocket upon descent. The third and final burn — the landing burn — began just before touchdown and provided the booster with a soft descent before landing back on Earth.
First stage landing Cold gas thrusters near the top flip the rocket around so it's upright. Then the stage engine fires briefly, just enough to slow its fall. As the stage approached its target, the legs deploy.
F9R Dev1 made its first test flight in April 2014, to an altitude of 250 meters (820 ft) before making a nominal vertical landing. On November 23, 2015, Blue Origin's New Shepard booster rocket made the first-ever successful vertical landing following an uncrewed suborbital test flight that reached space.
It was actually the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched in March 2017 with the EchoStar23 mission. It has completely disintegrated in the atmosphere," says the handle (translated).
Grid fins. Falcon 9 is equipped with four hypersonic grid fins positioned at the base of the interstage. They orient the rocket during reentry by moving the center of pressure.
The orbital maneuvering engines (OMS) then thrust the ship out of orbit and toward Earth. Descent through atmosphere: After it was safely out of orbit, the shuttle turned nose-first again and entered the atmosphere belly-down (like a belly-flop) to take advantage of drag with its blunt bottom.
In August 2020, Elon Musk tweeted that refurbishment and reuse of a booster is done for less than 10% the price of a new booster while the payload reduction is below 40%. According to his tweet SpaceX breaks even with a second flight per booster and saves money from the third flight on.
3:586:13Why NASA Doesn't Fly Reusable Rockets - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipTime because again it's not going to be used very often going to the additional engineering theMoreTime because again it's not going to be used very often going to the additional engineering the additional cost of designing. Something that big to be reusable compared to how infrequently.
Unlike rocket boosters previously used in the space program, the space shuttle's solid rocket booster casings and associated flight hardware are recovered at sea. The expended boosters are disassembled, refurbished and reloaded with solid propellant for reuse.
Company officials previously said that reusing a first-stage at least ten times significantly reduces the cost of spaceflight. A Falcon 9 booster can be reflown up to 100 times with refurbishment in between flights.