Elon Musk, the South African born founder of SpaceX, one of the world’s few commercial spaceflight companies capable of servicing the International Space Station has confirmed that his company successfully landed the booster rocket used to launch its latest mission last week.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket was brought back to Earth and landed safely into the Atlantic Ocean a week ago. Unfortunately, Musk explained at a press conference in Washington DC tonight, it was destroyed in a storm before it could be retrieved. The entrepreneur – who also founded electric car company Tesla – says that the next mission will see the company attempt to bring the booster stage rocket back down to land as well.

By reusing rockets, SpaceX is hoping to cut the costs of commercial space flight by up to 100 times.

At the same conference, Musk also said that SpaceX has filed papers to sue the US Air Force for not putting its contract to launch national security missions – like spy satellites – out to tender. Citing the current situation in the Crimea, he questioned whether the use of primarily Russian technology – as the situation is at the moment – was wise.

“Is this the right time to be sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kremlin,” he said.