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madlag | 10 years ago

There is no such thing as a dumb rocket : to get down, they are using almost exactly the same stuff they use to get up, weight wise: they use the gimbaled engines, and the nitrogen attitude thrusters. The only additional devices are the grid fins, to control aerodynamically the descent, and the legs. Then you have to write the right software, and it does not weight much more ;-)

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Retric|10 years ago

That and a little extra fuel. But, as you say probably less weight than you might think. Also, getting dunked in water probably adds quite a bit of new stresses so you would need a stronger rocket shell which is more wight.

samstave|10 years ago

Is this the first rocket with legs?

Seems like every thing else in history has really been a missile. This thing can land, so seems like it's literally the first rocket. Do we have a definition of missile vs rocket?

ygra|10 years ago

A missile historically has been anything that was thrown or launched. Nowadays it usually means a self-propelled weapon.

A rocket is just something with a rocket engine. Note that missiles do not need to use rocket engines and rockets don't need to carry warheads.