Falcon 9 v1.1

Designed across 2011 to 2013, this version existed to lift the Falcon 9 out of the lightweight class. The booster grew to 41.2 m, the nine engines moved from Merlin 1C to Merlin 1D and their arrangement changed from a square grid to an octagon with eight engines ringing a central one. The upper stage stretched in step and the staging mechanism was cut from twelve attachment points to three.

The rocket that emerged was some sixty per cent heavier and more powerful than its predecessor, rated at 13,150 kg to low Earth orbit and 4,850 kg to geostationary transfer orbit — squarely inside the commercial medium-lift bracket.

The debut on 29 September 2013 from Vandenberg carried the small Canadian CASSIOPE satellite. Heavy commercial payloads bound for geostationary orbit followed, and from April 2014 the version also flew Dragon cargo capsules to the space station. Fourteen of its fifteen flights succeeded; the exception came in June 2015, when the vehicle broke up during ascent on a NASA resupply mission.

Its place in the record is tied to reusability. Boost-back burns, controlled re-entry and propulsive descent were all rehearsed on these flights, first over open water and later against an autonomous drone ship. None of the three landing attempts ended well, but each narrowed the problem, and the first successful touchdown came on the maiden flight of the following version. The v1.1 bowed out on 17 January 2016 with the Jason-3 ocean satellite, the flight on which a landing leg failed to latch.