SpaceX has privately funded the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has developed technologies since the 2010s to facilitate full and rapid reuse of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site within minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad, following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal would have been reusability of both stages of their orbital launch vehicle, and the first stage would be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return. Development of reusable second stages for Falcon 9 was later abandoned in favor of developing Starship. However, SpaceX still developed reusable payload fairings for the Falcon 9.

The program was announced in 2011. SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in December 2015. The first re-flight of a landed first stage occurred in March 2017 with the second occurring in June 2017, that one only five months after the maiden flight of the booster. The third attempt occurred in October 2017 with the SES-11/EchoStar-105 mission. Reflights of refurbished first stages then became routine. In May 2021, B1051 became the first booster to launch ten missions.

The reusable launch system technology was initially developed for the first stage of Falcon 9. After stage separation, the booster flips around (an optional boostback burn reverses its course), a reentry burn sheds gravity-induced speed to prevent stage overheating as the spacecraft reenters the thicker part of the atmosphere, and a landing burn accomplishes the final low-altitude deceleration and touchdown.

SpaceX planned since at least 2014 to develop reusable second stages, a more challenging engineering problem because the vehicle is traveling at orbital velocity. Second stage reuse is considered vital to Elon Musk's plans for settlement of Mars. Initial concepts for a reusable Falcon 9 second stage were abandoned by 2018.

As of 2023^[update], SpaceX is developing the Starship system to be a fully-reusable two-stage launch vehicle, intended to replace all of its other launch vehicles and spacecraft for satellite delivery and human transport—Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon—and eventually support flights to the Moon and Mars. It could theoretically be used for point-to-point transportation on Earth.

SpaceX attempted to land the first stage of the Falcon 1 by parachute, but the stage did not survive atmosphere re-entry. They continued to experiment unsuccessfully with parachutes on the earliest Falcon 9 flights after 2010. SpaceX subsequently switched to developing a powered descent landing system.

A description of the reusable launch system was outlined in September 2011. SpaceX said it would attempt to develop powered descent and recovery of both Falcon 9 stages—a fully vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) rocket. The company produced an animated video of the first stage returning tail-first for a powered descent and the second stage with a heat shield, reentering head first before rotating for a powered descent. In September 2012, SpaceX began flight tests on a prototype reusable first stage with the suborbital Grasshopper rocket. Those tests continued into 2014, including testing of a second and larger prototype vehicle, F9R Dev1.

News of the Grasshopper test rocket had become public a few days earlier, when the US Federal Aviation Administration released a draft Environmental Impact Assessment for the SpaceX Test Site in Texas, and the space media had reported it. In May 2012, SpaceX obtained a set of atmospheric test data for the recovery of the Falcon 9 first stage based on 176 test runs in the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center wind tunnel test facility. The work was contracted out by SpaceX under a reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA.