The SpaceX launch on Sunday morning to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean ended in failure, but it’s a step closer to a new spaceflight strategy.
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The company successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket on land for the first time previous year, but has said the ship landings will prove to be easier. Once the first stage of the rocket separated, SpaceX attempted to return it safely to Earth for re-use, which is one of the company’s long-term goals as it should reduce the cost of reaching space.
A video of the mishap posted online by Space X’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk shows the large rocket landing slightly askew before keeling over and exploding as it hits the ground.
All told, SpaceX has now failed to land a Falcon 9 booster on a floating barge three times. Unfortunately, the rocket was unable to stick the landing. The precise landing of the Falcon 9 last month at Cape Canaveral, Florida, has many eager to see whether Musk and his team can pull off their second rocket landing.
“Similar to an aircraft carrier vs land: much smaller target area, that’s also translating and rotating”.
In April 2015, the Falcon 9 crashed in another attemped drone ship landing due to “slower than expected throttle valve response”, according to Musk. The launch after that, a supply mission to the International Space Station scheduled no earlier than March 20, will likewise require a sea-based landing because of the supply-laden Dragon cargo ship being delivered.
NOAA is one of five agencies partnering on the $180 million, five-year Jason-3 program.
“The measurements from Jason-3 will advance our efforts to understand Earth as an integrated system by increasing our knowledge of sea level changes and the ocean’s roles in climate”.
The 22-story tall rocket lifted off through thick fog from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the central California coast at 10:42 am PST (1842 GMT).
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It will also help NOAA’s national weather service and other global weather and environmental agencies to forecast more accurately about tropical cyclones.
