The 10 Biggest Spaceflight Stories of 2016

And the Washington-based company Blue Origin launched and landed the same suborbital New Shepard rocket four times this year, finally retiring the booster after a successful October test flight. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin — which are headed by billionaire entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, respectively — aim to develop fully reusable rockets as a way to slash the cost of spaceflight and open up the heavens to exploration.