SpaceX extended its lead in reusable rocketry after Falcon 9 first-stage booster 1067 completed its 30th launch and landing on Thursday, carrying a batch of Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center. The touchdown on the drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ marked the company’s 400th successful recovery at sea and set a new endurance record for an orbital-class booster, ten years after SpaceX first demonstrated controlled re-entry. Less than 48 hours earlier, another Falcon 9 booster logged SpaceX’s 399th drone-ship landing, underscoring the firm’s rapid-fire cadence. “From learning to land a rocket to flying the same booster 30 times,” Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said, calling the milestone critical to lowering launch costs and increasing access to orbit. Separately, SpaceX’s Starship programme notched its own breakthrough when prototype Ship 37 survived a deliberately punishing re-entry and executed a precision splashdown in the Indian Ocean during the vehicle’s 10th integrated test flight. Engineers flew the spacecraft with sections of its heat shield intentionally removed; founder Elon Musk said most tiles remained in place, validating recent design changes. The twin achievements advance SpaceX’s goal of fielding fully reusable launch systems capable of quick turnaround. Data from the record Falcon 9 flight and Starship’s hard-wearing heat shield will feed into efforts to refurbish hardware for repeat missions, a prerequisite for the company’s planned lunar landings and future crewed flights to Mars.