Aerospace · Recorded milestone
Reusable orbital booster
Recorded year2015
SpaceX lands a Falcon 9 first stage after an orbital launch, cutting launch costs.
Explore this milestone on the interactive mapBuilt on
- MicroprocessorRecorded · 1971requires
- Reusable space shuttleRecorded · 1981enables
- GPSRecorded · 1995enables
Led to
- Deep Space Atomic ClockRecorded · 2019enables
- LEO satellite internetRecorded · 2020enables
- All-civilian orbital flightRecorded · 2021enables
- Suborbital tourist flightsRecorded · 2021enables
- Asteroid nudged off courseRecorded · 2022enables
- Orbital research factoriesRecorded · 2023requires
- Orbital manufacturingRecorded · 2024enables
- GPS signals used on the MoonRecorded · 2025enables
- Solar-powered AI compute in orbitRecorded · 2025requires
- Starship reaches orbitRecorded · 2026enables
- Infrared asteroid-hunting telescopeForecast · ~2027enables
- Lunar ice sampled in shadowed cratersForecast · ~2027enables
- Anywhere imaged every hourForecast · ~2028enables
- Fully reusable heavy launchForecast · ~2028enables
- Lunar far-side radio telescopeForecast · ~2028enables
- Orbital hotelsForecast · ~2028enables
- Ship-to-ship orbital refuellingForecast · ~2028enables
- Apophis flyby studied up closeForecast · ~2029enables
- Bricks made on the MoonForecast · ~2029enables
- Sunlight from orbit at nightForecast · ~2029enables
- Commercial space stationsForecast · ~2030enables
- Hyperspectral satellite constellationsForecast · ~2030enables
- Europa ocean exploredForecast · ~2031enables
- Chip crystals grown in orbitForecast · ~2032enables
- Every square metre sensedForecast · ~2032enables
- Space gravitational-wave observatoryForecast · ~2037enables
- Venus cloud outpostsForecast · ~2037enables
- Rendezvous with interstellar objectsForecast · ~2040enables
- Orbital billboardForecast · ~2048enables
Sources & evidence
Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.