# Roughly what percentage (by cost) of a Rocket Launch does stage 1 of the Falcon 9 Rocket represent? [duplicate]

As of a short time ago, SpaceX made history as the first entity *ever* to successfully re-land the initial stage of an orbital rocket.

Up until this point, the dominating factor in the cost of Rocket Launches has been that you have to build a new Rocket for every launch (about \$50 Million for a Falcon 9 launch, I've seen estimates of \$10 - \$20 Million purely to manufacture the rocket), whereas a typical launch burns just$200,000 of fuel.

If, in theory, Falcon 9 can continually re-use its initial rocket stage without having to build a new one each time, how much might this reduce the cost of a Rocket Launch by?

## marked as duplicate by Hohmannfan♦, 1337joe, Nathan Tuggy, Fred, StuDec 23 '15 at 6:42

• Answered here: space.stackexchange.com/questions/8330/… – ventsyv Dec 22 '15 at 14:56
• I quibble with your premise; depending on how you define "initial stage", the US space shuttle accomplished this in 1982. – Russell Borogove Dec 22 '15 at 15:06
• How about *In one piece* then? IIRC, the shuttle only ever managed to recover the booster rockets from its' launches, and only after they'd already detached from the main rocket body (The huge orange tank thing). – Kaz Dec 22 '15 at 15:15