Where does this come from, and can I check it?

The rocket touched down upright in Florida after an orbital launch. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a space fact?

Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

Mondo Knows Facts

Falcon 9 landed its first booster in 2015

The rocket touched down upright in Florida after an orbital launch On 21 December 2015 a Falcon 9 first stage flew back to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral and landed vertically, the first orbital-class booster to do so. Earlier attempts to land on a drone ship had failed. Recovering and reusing boosters later cut the price of putting a satellite in orbit. It sits in Mondo's space collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

NASA Science

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Chandrayaan-3 landed near the lunar south poleIndia's 2023 mission set a lander and rover down at high southern latitude Apollo 11 landed through a cascade of computer alarms1202 and 1201 program alarms meant the guidance computer was shedding low priority work Luna 3 photographed the Moon's hidden sideThe 1959 Soviet probe returned the first images of the far hemisphere Venera 7 survived a landing on VenusThe 1970 probe sent data from the surface for about 23 minutes Mariner 4 sent the first close-up pictures of MarsIts 1965 flyby showed a cratered surface and a thin atmosphere Chang'e 4 landed on the Moon's far sideNo spacecraft had touched down on the hidden hemisphere before 2019

Tags: falcon-9, reusability, landing

Falcon 9 landed its first booster in 2015: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: The rocket touched down upright in Florida after an orbital launch. The figure is taken from NASA Science, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a space fact?: Yes. It sits on the Space shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.