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<\/p>\nA SpaceX launch has a familiar outline. The rocket lifts off, its stages separate, and a payload continues toward space. The less familiar story is what happens to the hardware along the way, and how SpaceX has changed systems that rockets usually leave behind or use only once.<\/p>\n
Some differences are visible, such as a booster returning to its launch tower. Others are hidden inside the vehicle, where rocket fuel can help steer engines and compressed gas can push stages apart. <\/p>\n
Here are seven surprising facts we bet you did not know about SpaceX and its rocket launches.<\/p>\n
1. A Falcon 9 booster can land while the upper stage is still climbing<\/p>\n
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Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n Most rocket first stages are discarded after they finish their job. Falcon 9\u2019s first stage can instead turn around and land while its second stage continues carrying a payload toward orbit; NASA documented exactly that sequence during SpaceX\u2019s first successful orbital-class booster landing in 2015. <\/p>\n This does not happen in the same order on every mission. On another NASA-documented flight<\/a>, Dragon was already in orbit before the booster attempted to land. What is different is that SpaceX plans a controlled return for the first stage while the rest of the mission proceeds independently.<\/p>\n 2. SpaceX flies used satellite covers<\/p>\n The fairing is the protective shell around a satellite during ascent, and rockets release it once the thickest part of the atmosphere is behind them. <\/p>\n SpaceX recovers and reuses fairing halves; its Falcon user guide says previously flown halves had been used on 307 missions as of February 2025. <\/p>\n That makes the fairing more than packaging thrown away after launch. Booster landings receive the attention, but SpaceX also treats these large covers as hardware worth recovering, inspecting, and flying again.<\/p>\n 3. A booster used for a crew launch can return for another mission<\/p>\n In 2020, a Falcon 9 launched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard Dragon on the Demo-2 mission. The same first-stage booster later launched an uncrewed cargo Dragon, and NASA identified that launch as the booster\u2019s fourth flight. <\/p>\n It is easy to assume that a rocket assigned to astronauts would be used only once. The example shows how SpaceX can recover the booster from a crew launch and prepare it for a subsequent mission, while the spacecraft carrying the astronauts continues on its own.<\/p>\n 4. Compressed gas pushes Falcon\u2019s stages apart<\/p>\n Stage separation is a critical moment. The spent booster must move clear so the upper stage can continue its flight. SpaceX\u2019s Falcon user guide says pneumatic devices release and push apart Falcon\u2019s stages, as well as Falcon Heavy\u2019s side boosters. <\/p>\n Unlike the traditional explosives-based separation system described in the guide, Falcon\u2019s pneumatic system allows SpaceX<\/a> to functionally test the actual hardware that will fly. <\/p>\n That gives engineers a way to check the separation mechanism before the rocket reaches the point where it must work.<\/p>\n 5. Starship fires its upper-stage engines before separation is complete<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Falcon_9_booster_B1035_in_Space_Center_Houston_01.jpg\" "\\"7")
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