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by Manabu-eo 457 days ago
> the basic controls of fully automated vertical landing were directly demo'd in a real flying 1/3 scale test bed (though important to note not an orbital one) with the DC-X in 1993.

Surveyor 1 was the first automated vertical soft-landing rocket AFAIK, in 1966. DC-X was the first using turbo-pump engines.