Reusable rocketry

The American company SpaceX is the first commercial aerospace outfit to put spacecraft into orbit and get them home again, and now regularly flies resupply missions to the International Space Station.

SpaceX has also developed rockets that can safely perform a vertical landing, which means they can be reused for further flights. All this is in aid of SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s grand plan of human colonisation of Mars, an outcome which is perhaps still some way off.

The picture above shows the relaunch on 3 June of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft towards the ISS from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA.