What is a reusable rocket?

How it works

US commercial spaceflight regulations define a reusable launch vehicle as one built to come back to Earth largely in one piece so it can launch again. The definition also covers one whose stages can be recovered for use on a later, similar vehicle. An expendable vehicle, by contrast, uses each of its propulsive stages for a single flight.

Most reusable rockets flying today are partially reusable. The first stage, or booster, separates a few minutes after liftoff. It steers back through the atmosphere and relights its engines to land on a pad or a ship at sea. The upper stage that carries the payload to orbit is not recovered. SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy work this way.

NASA calls its space shuttle, first launched in April 1981, the world's first reusable spacecraft. It says every component except the external fuel tank was reused.

Why it matters

An expendable rocket's hardware flies once. SpaceX says reuse lets it fly the costliest parts of a Falcon 9 again. It says this reduces the cost of reaching space. Space.com reported that Falcon 9 flew 165 missions in 2025, more than all other orbital rockets combined.

Where things stand in 2026

Spaceflight Now counted SpaceX's 614th launch of a previously flown booster on August 18, 2026. One Falcon 9 booster flew for a record 37th time on August 25, 2026.

Blue Origin reflew a New Glenn booster for the first time on April 19, 2026, with new engines, and landed it again. But the satellite it carried was left in too low an orbit. Spaceflight Now reported on August 19, 2026, that the rocket was grounded after an explosion during a static-fire test on May 28.

In China, the state-owned contractor CASC caught a Long March 10B first stage in a net on a ship at sea on July 10, 2026. The commercial company LandSpace landed a Zhuque-3 booster on a pad on August 19. Neither booster had flown again as of August 25, Space.com reported.

Full reuse of both stages is the stated goal of SpaceX's Starship. It reached orbit for the first time on September 28, 2026. Both stages came down in the ocean on that flight. Space.com reported that SpaceX had caught the booster with its launch tower on three earlier test flights and had not yet tried to catch the upper stage.