SpaceX is a ground-breaking private space company, and that's not really news to anyone. The path to developing all of its ground-breaking technologies involves a lot of testing. This test of a high retro-thrust landing was one of them.
SpaceX's reusable rocketry technology is their primary development. The main booster of their Falcon 9 can be reconditioned and used again and again, keeping costs down. After lift-off, and after the primary stage is released, the main-stage booster lands on a SpaceX drone ship, where it is secured and delivered to shore to be reused.
In this case, SpaceX wanted to test a high retro-thrust landing. They performed this test over water, rather than on a drone ship, to avoid damaging the ship. The rocket itself wasn't expected to survive, but did. As Elon Musk confirmed in his tweet:
The retro-thrust rockets on SpaceX rockets like the Falcon 9 allow the rocket to land softly. They thrust in the opposite direction the rocket is landing, and cushion the Falcon 9's landing on the droneship. Since SpaceX is developing larger rockets, it stands to reason they're testing high-thrust retro-rockets.
Testing them on a droneship for the first time, before any data has been gathered, is risky. Why risk damaging a droneship? They've never hurt anyone. That's why the test was conducted over water.
With the successful static test of SpaceX's Falcon Heavy last week, a first launch for the Heavy is in sight. Testing high retro-thrust landings could be related to the upcoming first launch, even though, as Elon Musk said, merely getting the Falcon Heavy off the pad and back would constitute a successful first flight.
Eventually, the Falcon Heavy will complete its first mission and launch a payload into orbit. And when it does, it will need to land and be recovered. Since the Falcon Heavy is basically three Falcon 9 main boosters strapped together, it will need more retrothrust to land on the drone ship.
The Falcon Heavy is designed to be reusable, just like its little brother, the Falcon 9. Reusability is key to SpaceX and is the whole reason Musk started the company: to make spaceflight more affordable, and to help humanity travel beyond the Moon.
SpaceX plans to tow this rocket back to shore and see if it can be salvaged. But the fate of this single rocket isn't really that important in the grand scheme of things. What's important is that SpaceX is still testing designs, and still pushing the boundaries of lower-cost spaceflight.
With that in mind, here's hoping the whiz kids at SpaceX can destroy a few more rockets. After all, it's all in the name of science.
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