Elon Musk released a supercut of SpaceX rocket explosion videos with never-before-seen footage

rocket landing explosion video spacex

These days SpaceX, the aerospace company owned by tech mogul Elon Musk, makes landing rockets look easy.

But it wasn't always that way.

To underscore that point in a comical yet dramatic way, Musk has released a supercut of explosive SpaceX rocket tests.

"Long road to reusabity of Falcon 9 primary boost stage…When upper stage & fairing also reusable, costs will drop by a factor >100," Musk said on Twitter early Thursday morning, referring to the company's reusable, 229-foot-tall orbital rocket system.

His message also included a one-minute clip of a longer video posted to YouTube (which we've embedded below).

Since the company's founding in 2002, engineers have performed dozens of tests — yet many of the attempts to launch and land these towering, fuel-filled machines ended in fiery explosions.

Today SpaceX has more or less perfected launching Falcon 9 rockets, dropping off customer payloads into orbit, and recovering the booster: the most expensive part of the rocket. But as Musk noted, the company is working on recovering as much fo the multi-million-dollar system as possible.

Over time, this could earn SpaceX billions and help open up a new era of spaceflight.

Watch SpaceX's "How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster" video below.

The video is a montage of tests dating back several years, including some of the company's Grasshopper rocket tests, and includes high-definition clips of never-before-released footage.

The supercut doesn't show the June 2015, September 2016, and other Falcon 9 rocket failures that resulted in a loss of expensive payloads.

SpaceX plans to launch its biggest-ever — and reusable — rocket system called the Falcon Heavy in November, and follow up with crewed launches of NASA astronauts and other customers (perhaps even a moon mission) in 2019.

DON'T MISS: Elon Musk spent $1 billion developing SpaceX's reusable rockets — here's how fast he might earn it all back

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