A month after the billionaire’s space company landed the first stage of its rocket on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla., it is going to try to land it on a floating platform at sea.
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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket delivered the Jason-3 satellite for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), French space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).
The Falcon 9 rocket was launched yesterday on a mission to carry NASA’s Jason 3 satellite, which will monitor the world’s oceans, into orbit. The satellite that was launched into space, named Jason-3, will measure ocean levels on the Earth’s surface.
The mishap marks the third such landing failure at sea since the privately funded company began space launches in 2008.
The first stage of the rocket made it back to the platform, but one of the rocket’s legs failed to latch into position, subsequently breaking upon landing. We must start off by saying that SpaceX’s primary mission, to launch NASA’s Jason-13 ocean-monitoring satellite into orbit, was a success. As Musk said, however, this won’t be the last drone ship landing attempt we’ll see.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk initially tweeted the rocket had a hard landing on the drone ship and broke a leg off the rocket. The only problem was that one of the four landing legs, which help stabilize the rocket after touching down, did not lock into place, and therefore, gave in under the massive weight pressing upon it. This caused the rocket to tip over, and upon impact, explode.
The most recent attempt at landing a rocket was hard, according to Business Insider.
Yesterday’s mission was the final launch and landing attempt using the Falcon 9 v1.1. “Was within 1.3 meters of droneship center”, SpaceX confirmed later.
“This makes the ocean perhaps the biggest player in the climate change story”.
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The cost of the mission, including five years of operation, was put at $180 million. Timing of how long it takes the signal to return indicates sea level height, which rises or falls depending on the temperature of the water. The Falcon 9 also attempted to land on a ship sitting off the coast of Southern California, but sustained damage during the landing.
