SpaceX landed a reusable rocket on a robotic drone on Friday, its fifth attempt and a historic achievement in a budding space race between billionaires to revolutionize spaceflight.

The Falcon 9 rocket took off with a Dragon cargo capsule at 4.43pm ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, under clear conditions.

SpaceX employees gathered around the company's Mission Control in Hawthorne, California, cheered wildly and chanted "USA" after the booster touched down on the barge off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Previous barge attempts had failed.

The private spaceflight company, which has shuttled cargo to the International Space Station and satellites into orbit since 2012, set off to deliver 7,000lb of supplies and a habitat experiment to the station – an inflatable room for astronauts.

The Dragon and inflatable room should reach the space station on Sunday.

Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who owns SpaceX, has said he hopes to pioneer reusable rockets that will make spaceflight vastly less expensive – and thus open new frontiers of exploration and opportunity in space.