SpaceX founder Elon Musk has posted dramatic vision of the failed ocean landing of his company’s Falcon 9 rocket to his Instagram account.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a climate-monitoring satellite into orbit, but the attempt to land the rocket failed.
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.
Musk, like others, is working to recover the rockets in an attempt to lower the cost of space travel, so that it can become more accessible to the masses.
The launch of the satellite is a partnership between several global agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the French space agency CNES, and the European Organization for Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.
Children prepare to take photos of the launch of Falcon 9 rocket near Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the United States, on January 17, 2016. The plan is to deliver into orbit a satellite, named Jason-3, that will measure ocean levels on the Earth’s surface for the next 23 years.
The failed approach this morning is the third time SpaceX has attempted to land one of their reusable rockets at sea, each time with explosive consequences.
“If you have a rocket that’s now able to land on a moving barge, it shows that your control of the vehicle is excellent”, Caceres said.
This is the first attempt to land the Falcon 9 off the coast of San Pedro.
On the official Twitter page, SpaceX explained: “After further data review, stage landed softly but leg 3 didn’t lockout”.
Even though an ocean landing is more hard, SpaceX said it needed to ideal the technique so it could bring back its rockets in all kinds of situations.
Elon Musk’s company first tested the ability of the Falcon 9 to land on a barge a year ago, but the 14-story rocket ran out of hydraulic fluid before it hit the ship and broke into pieces.
Musk, in a response to a tweet, said Sunday’s landing “probably” would have had the same result if it had been a touchdown on land. “Won’t be last RUD, but am optimistic about upcoming ship landing”. “Similar to an aircraft carrier vs land: much smaller target area, that’s also translating & rotating”.
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“I’m pretty hopeful, ” SpaceX Vice President of Mission Assurance Hans Koenigsmann said during the press conference before the launch, according to Gizmodo.
