The landing ended 7 minutes after launch, with the platform's mechanical arms “embracing” the vehicle. “There is no reverse gear on a rocket, what SpaceX did was balance the weight. What makes it descend is the weight, the gravity, in a controlled way”, says Hetem.

“The main difficulty with this type of thing is knowing the dynamics of the vehicle in advance. What was done was simulated thousands of times, everything is pre-calculated”, adds Dourado.