SpaceX CRS-8 achieved the first successful landing of a Falcon 9 first stage on an autonomous drone ship. The mission launched on 8 April 2016 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the Dragon CRS-8 spacecraft toward the International Space Station.
After sending Dragon into orbit, Falcon 9’s first stage performed a controlled descent toward the Atlantic Ocean. It landed on the autonomous spaceport drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, demonstrating that SpaceX could recover boosters from ocean-based landing platforms as well as from land.
The landing was a major step in SpaceX’s reusable-launch program. Earlier Falcon 9 attempts had landed successfully on solid ground, but drone-ship recovery was important for missions whose flight paths or payload requirements did not allow a return to the launch site. The recovered booster was later inspected and reused.
CRS-8 is sometimes confused with CRS-5, which made an unsuccessful drone-ship landing attempt in 2015, or with CRS-9, which followed in July 2016. CRS-8 refers to the eighth SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA.