Watch the video above: Elon Musk discusses Falcon 9 and lawsuit against U.S. government.
TORONTO – Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, the first privately funded commercial rocket developer, announced Friday that his company successfully landed Falcon 9, a reusable rocket.
That was the good news: the bad news was that though the first stage of the rocket soft-landed in the Atlantic Ocean, it was damaged by rough waves.
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Still, the accomplishment was a great success for SpaceX.
“No one has ever soft landed a liquid rocket boost stage before,” Musk said in a press conference. “And I think this bodes very well for achieving reusability.”
Musk is the billionaire founder of PayPal. He also is the CEO of electric car company, Tesla.
Musk also announced that SpaceX is filing a suit against the U.S. federal government over its right to compete for the bid to launch military satellites. That right currently belongs to United Launch Alliance.
“This is not SpaceX protesting and saying that these launches should be awarded to us. We’re just protesting and saying these launches should be competed — and if we compete and lose that’s fine,” Musk said.
SpaceX currently launches commercial rockets to the International Space Station, providing supplies for the astronauts.
During the press conference, Musk said SpaceX will also put a launch pad for commercial satellites and NASA rockets on the south coast of Texas.
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