[Col. Fishguts]

And btw, also puts some satellites in orbit.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/22/spacex_successfully_returns_rocket_to_earth_with_vertical_landing/

Full launch webcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bTbVbe4e4
Touchdown at around 32minutes, where everybody goes completely bananas.

Seeing the thing come down and land gracefully dead center is quite epic, quite the Christmas present for Musk

[est1895]

Yeah I watched it live yesterday.  On their last launch, the second stage exploded.  They have been trying to perfect the landing for a few years.  They said that the first stage costs around $50,000,000 and the fuel only $200,000.  So bringing back the first stage, will decrease the cost of launching satellites greatly.  If they can continue to land the first stage every time, the next step is to land the second stage.  Their next launch should be the Falcon Heavy, though I am not sure.

[Bryan See]

I didn't know about it, but I've came across during a Google search just now.

Congratulations, Space-X. I hope they launch their Falcon Heavy rocket very soon

[Rodo]

Incredible, amazing achievement.
I was so exited about blue origin making it, this is just getting crazy now.

[Goober5000]

Their next launch should be the Falcon Heavy, though I am not sure.

SpaceflightNow has a regularly updated schedule of upcoming launches.  They have two launches in January, but Falcon Heavy isn't scheduled to make its debut until April at the earliest.

I was so exited about blue origin making it, this is just getting crazy now.

Here are two graphics comparing the respective achievements of Blue Origin and SpaceX.

[Bryan See]

Cool! Falcon is better than New Shephard. Regarding Falcon Heavy's launch, the main thing it carries is The Planetary Society's LightSail.

I bet that SpaceX Falcon 9 (and by extension, Falcon Heavy) could carry satellites possibly made by us here at HLP.

[est1895]

Here is a flight animation of the Falcon Heavy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ca6x4QbpoM

[est1895]

So here's is a video of their next launch.  They tried to do a sea landing this time and it failed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm3xz90MjeE

[Bryan See]

It's a close one. Shortly after landing on barge with touchdown speed, the failure of of the leg lockout in latching causes the first stage to be tipped over. This is something that SpaceX needs to resolve before certifying Falcon 9 for re-usability.

[BirdofPrey]

Given they had no problems landing on land -and even when they ditched the rocket, it hit their target-, but the barge continues to elude them, I begin to wonder if maybe they underengineered for landing on a moving platform.

[The E]

Two things. The landing itself went off without a hitch, the F9 was on target and actually made a good landing. What didn't work this time was that one of the legs didn't lock in place and then buckled under the load; I do not know whether that was due to a fault in the rocket or due to environmental issues (Elon Musk speculated it was due to ice buildup on the stage). Point is, SpaceX is past the "can we do this" stage and well into "find out where the hidden bugs are".

[BirdofPrey]

The last couple landings have basically been like that.  The rocket made it to the barge safely, and fell over

[The E]

Well, not quite. The first barge landing, Flight 14, failed because the rocket ran out of hydraulics before landing safely. The second attempt, Flight 17, failed because the throttle control wasn't fine enough to allow a soft landing, again resulting in a hard crash. On Flight 20, they managed to land safely on dry land. Finally, on 21, they got the rocket onto the barge safely, but then had it failed.

So, in conclusion, they had two failures in getting the rocket onto the pad at safe speeds, one perfect landing and one where the landing went fine, but one leg failed.

[Mongoose]

I know the pad landing was still just in the testing phase, but after it worked so successfully I'm a bit confused as to why they're still bothering with the barge.  You'd think that sort of proof-of-concept would be enough to get them cleared for further land tests.

[SirCumference]

As I understand it, the barge landing is desirable because you don't have to carry and burn extra fuel to fly back to where you launched from. You can pick your landing spot.

[Mongoose]

That is true.  I was going to say that I didn't think the barge was far enough off the Florida coast to make much of a difference from the return altitudes involved, but then I realized that this was a Vandenberg launch.  Apparently they also didn't receive timely federal clearances to attempt a pad landing even if they'd been able to with this launch profile, though.

[Dragon]

As I understand it, the barge landing is desirable because you don't have to carry and burn extra fuel to fly back to where you launched from. You can pick your landing spot.

That, and barge is essential if they want to reuse the Falcon Heavy core stage, later down the line. The Falcon Heavy core is separated much further downrange than Falcon 9 first stage, so while the boosters could do a flyback landing, the core needs a barge.

[est1895]

An here's a video of Blue Origin's Landing in November 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sij4ivRwHuQ

[est1895]

A new video from Blue Origin!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74tyedGkoUc