— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 20, 2020 On May 30 the same rocket vaulted a gumdrop-shaped spacecraft, Crew Dragon, into orbit with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Douglas Hurley strapped inside. The men are expected to return from the International Space Station in August. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is the only launch vehicle in the world that features a reusable first-stage booster. For years, the company has routinely recovered the boosters: After the first-stage spends most of its fuel, it detaches from the rocket’s second stage and then steers itself back to an upright landing on seafaring platforms or a ground pad. The second, non-reusable stage of the rocket then fires up its own engine to finish off the mission. Recapturing, refurbishing and reflying rocket hardware saves SpaceX money, the company says, and it’s at the core of CEO Elon Musk’s mission to drive down the cost of launching satellites — or people — into outer space. The company’s success in developing reusable rocket technology upended a fairly uncompetitive industry, and many of its competitors, such as legacy rocket builder United Launch Alliance and newcomer Blue Origin, are attempting to create reusable vehicles of their own. In this NASA handout image, A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched from Launch Complex 39A on NASAs SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard, Saturday, May 30, 2020, at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images) Bill Ingalls/NASA/Getty Images