[FlyMoreRockets]

My math shows the technology to be 22 years old.

DC-X: First flight (and first successful propulsive landing) 18 August 1993

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X

"In December 2015, a Falcon 9 accomplished a propulsive vertical landing."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTVL

Not mentioned in the above link was an amateur group developing VTVL tech around the San Francisco bay area in the 90's. IIRC, it was EPRS. FWIW, they also invented a multi-rotor platform to test their conrol system that evolved into the modern drone.

http://www.erps.org

[valuearb]

Don’t forget that SpaceX Grasshopper flew DC-X like tests in 2012. Not first by any means, but first for SpaceX.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_prototypes

[FlyMoreRockets]

Valid point. Also, if one wants to stretch the envelope, Harold Graham, flying the Bell Rocket Belt, performed the first rocket powered landing, April 20th, 1961 at Bell Aerospace, upstate New York. This development footage opens with that flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxmxbMdToR4