The early, three-engine version of a rocket that Elon Musk, SpaceX head honcho, hopes will eventually take humans to Mars flew to an altitude of about 6.2 miles (10 kilometers), did a brief single-engine hover before flipping horizontal for its long coast towards the landing pad.
The landing caps off a busy period for SpaceX that has seen the return of astronauts to Earth aboard a Crew Dragon and a milestone Starlink launch, not to mention Musk is hosting Saturday Night Live this week.
Musk said SN15 "has hundreds of design improvements across structures, avionics/software and engine," including, apparently, upgrades to cover some of the problems that prevented SpaceX from sticking the landing without a rapid unscheduled disassembly.
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