SpaceX has released a video showing a series of landing failures from its rocket launches - many of which had explosive results.
While the aerospace company is now perfecting the process, the short video reveals it suffered multiple failures over several years before successfully landing the booster stage of one of its Falcon 9 rockets.
Elon Musk, the South African billionaire behind the firm, tweeted: “long road to reusability of [the] Falcon 9 primary boost stage”.
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He adds that costs will drop by a factor of 100 when the “upper stage” and “fairing” of Falcon 9 rockets can be saved.
The company’s has completed “dozens of tests” since its inception in 2002, says Business Insider, but “many of their attempts to launch and land these towering, fuel-filled machines ended in fiery explosions”.
“Today, SpaceX has more or less perfected launching Falcon 9 rockets,” the website adds. The firm recovered its first booster section - “the most expensive part of the rocket” - in April last year.
Reusing rockets has saved the company a significant amount of money and has allowed it to send a rocket into orbit “every three weeks”, says Yahoo News.
Along with the Falcon 9 rocket, the site says, SpaceX is developing a larger vessel to help send heavier payloads into space.