The Falcon 9 blasted off earlier in the day from Vandenberg Air Force Base to put the U.S- and European-owned Jason 3 climate-monitoring satellite into orbit.
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We were reminded of that yesterday when SpaceX tried to land a Falcon 9 rocket on a barge in the Pacific.
While SpaceX has another rocket landing attempt to learn from, backers were also able to celebrate the successful deployment of the Jason-3 satellite. The rocket, carrying 11 communications satellites for Orbcomm is the first launch of the rocket since a failed mission to the International Space Station in June, 2015. He said the “root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff”. So the secondary mission goal is attempting a 2nd rocket recovery landing of the firms Falcon 9 booster in barely 4 weeks time – this time on an ocean going barge.
In a Tweet on Sunday, Musk acknowledged the difficulty of landing a rocket on an ocean barge.
“It tipped over after landing”.
According to The Associated Press, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted a video of the landing attempt to his Instagram account.
The failed landing of the Falcon 9 rocket is a setback for the company, whose mission is to reduce future launch costs by reusing the multi-million dollar rockets instead of having them fall into the ocean as is now done.
A launch is scheduled for 1:45 pm ET from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California.
Currently, expensive rocket components are jettisoned into the ocean after launch, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.
Jason-3 will add to a 23-year satellite record of global sea surface heights, a measurement with scientific, commercial and practical applications related to climate change, currents and weather.
An ocean-monitoring satellite that launched from the California coast has separated from its SpaceX rocket and been sent toward orbit.
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The Falcon 9 project is part of SpaceX’s ambition to create a reusable rocket system to take space travel into a new era of affordability and efficiency. The satellite was left in low-Earth orbit and will monitor sea level rise and the planet’s oceans.
