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Falcon 9 Milestones Vindicate SpaceX’s ‘Dumb’ Approach to Reuse

Eric Berger, Ars Technica

created: Aug. 30, 2025, 10 a.m. | updated: Sept. 15, 2025, 8:32 a.m.

As SpaceX's Starship vehicle gathered all of the attention this week, the company's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket continued to hit some impressive milestones. Strikingly, this was the 400th time SpaceX has executed a drone ship landing. This first stage, Booster 1067, subsequently returned and landed on another drone ship, A Shortfall of Gravitas. A Decade in the MakingThese milestones came about one decade after SpaceX began to have some success with first-stage reuse. The first drone ship landing followed in April 2016.

6 months ago: Science Latest