Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "2014 in science" in English language version.
The April 17 F9R Dev 1 flight, which lasted under 1 min., was the first vertical landing test of a production-representative recoverable Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage, while the April 18 cargo flight to the ISS was the first opportunity for SpaceX to evaluate the design of foldable landing legs and upgraded thrusters that control the stage during its initial descent.
The first successful "soft landing" of a Falcon 9 rocket happened in April of this year
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