California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, widely known as simply SpaceX, is claiming a partial victory in its ongoing quest for a recoverable -- and reusable -- rocket.

According to an announcement released by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk over Twitter, the first stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle that blasted a Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station April 18 returned to Earth intact, splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and communicated with mission controllers for 8 seconds thereafter before, apparently, succumbing to the treacherous waters in which it landed.

"Data upload from tracking plane shows landing in Atlantic was good! Several boats enroute through heavy seas," Musk said in one of several Twitter postings. "Flight computers continued transmitting for 8 seconds after reaching the water. Stopped when booster went horizontal."

The rocket had been outfitted with four carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb landing legs, mounted around the base of the 12-foot-diameter first stage and designed to extend shortly before the water landing.

The first stage was supposed to fire its engines twice, after separating from the Falcon 9's second stage less than three minutes into the mission; the first burn was expected to slow the rocket's velocity enough to fall into a prescribed landing zone in the Atlantic Ocean a few hundred miles northeast of Cape Canaveral, Fla., and a second firing was supposed to help the rocket stage enter the water gently.

SpaceX, one of two private transport companies contracted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to run supply missions to the space station, has tried to retrieve rocket stages before, initially trying to use a parachute-assisted recovery, but then switching its focus to developing a craft capable of a propulsive soft touchdown on a landing pad.

But, regardless whether or not the first stage is retrieved in one piece, Musk told members of the media, the re-entry experiment underscored Falcon 9's viability as a reusable rocket.

"We were able to control the boost stage to a zero roll rate, which is previously what has destroyed the stage," Musk said. "This time, with more powerful thrusters and more nitrogen propellant, we were able to null the roll rates."

Eventually, assuming the rocket stage from Friday's launch cannot be recovered, SpaceX developers will need to find a way of successfully returning a first stage to a precision touchdown on land and then figure out what will be required to prepare it to fly again.

According to Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president of mission assurance, an attempted water recovery is also scheduled for the next Falcon 9 launch in May.