SpaceX on Thursday launched and landed a first-stage rocket booster that had previously flown _ a milestone that could signal a new era of low-cost space transportation.
The successful launch of the commercial communications satellite on the recycled Falcon 9 rocket could lower launch costs as much as 30 percent, if SpaceX is able to make the procedure routine.
SpaceX employees at the company's Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters in the Los Angeles area cheered and clapped as they watched the first-stage booster touch down on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean named Of Course I Still Love You.
On the company's live webcast, SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said he was at a loss for words.
"It's been 15 years to get to this point," Musk said. "A lot of difficult steps along the way. It's a great day, not just for SpaceX, but for the space industry as a whole."
Reusability is a crucial part of Musk's larger goals. His plan to colonize Mars revolves around a reusable rocket system that could see spaceships being used 12 to 15 times.
Long before that, SpaceX plans to increase its satellite and cargo launch cadence, which analysts said would be aided by having reliable, reusable rocket boosters.
But that depends on turning around each first-stage booster relatively quickly and cheaply. SpaceX will also have to determine how many times its boosters can be used without sacrificing reliability.
In a prerecorded interview shown during SpaceX's webcast, company President Gwynne Shotwell said the final upgrade to the Falcon 9 rocket, which should fly this year, should be capable of 10 reflights "or even more."
"What this means is that if you can reuse this over and over again, the economies of scale are just going to be incredible," said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst at Teal Group.
"You'll be able to conceivably get the prices of these launch vehicles down to rates that nobody conceived of," he said.
Analysts said successful relaunches probably will put pressure on competitors to adopt new technology and lower costs.
Currently, a Falcon 9 rocket launch costs about $62 million, according to SpaceX's website _ about 40 percent cheaper than that by one of its competitors.
During the webcast of Thursday's launch, SpaceX certification engineer Kate Tice said the majority of launch costs stem from building a rocket; the cost of the rocket's fuel is about $200,000 to $300,000.
Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer for SES, the Luxembourg-based company whose satellite was launched Thursday, would not disclose how much it paid for the flight, only saying the company received a discount.
SpaceX said the first-stage booster that flew Thursday went through an extensive evaluation process, including a thorough inspection of the entire booster and individual engine testing.
Once it landed after its first flight last April, the first-stage booster traveled via ground transport to Florida for refurbishment before heading to SpaceX's McGregor, Texas development facility for testing and then, finally, the launch site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The company tweeted in January that it had completed a successful static fire test of the first-stage booster in Texas. On Monday, SpaceX had test-fired the entire rocket, including the recycled booster, on the launch pad.
Since landing its first-ever booster back on land in December 2015, SpaceX has brought back eight additional first-stage boosters, including the second landing of Thursday's booster.
The 11,600-pound satellite operated by SES went into orbit 22,360 miles above the Earth. It will replace two existing satellites, providing broadband and high-definition video capabilities throughout Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
