Why SpaceX wants to reuse both parts of Starship

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the CRS-11 mission lands at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, in June 2017. 

From SpaceX

SpaceX has always made a big deal about steering rocket boosters back to a safe landing after launch so that the vehicles can be refurbished and flown again — driving down the cost of each rocket launch.

But while SpaceX has mastered the rocket booster landing maneuver with its smaller workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9, the company cannot yet recover and re-fly the second stage boosters. So only the bottom roughly 60% of the rocket is flown more than once.

Starship aims to change that — making both the Super Heavy booster that gives the first burst of power at liftoff and the upper Starship rocket and spacecraft recoverable and reusable.

“This is the vehicle and the system that will make flying rockets much more like flying airplanes,” SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell said during a conference on Friday. “Think about what life would be like if aircraft were one-time (use).”