This was the fourth time the company has tried (and failed) to land on the barge at sea; however, SpaceX did manage to land back on a pad on solid land at Cape Canaveral in December after launching 11 satellites to orbit.
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Update: The Falcon 9 rocket launched successfully, however it was not immediately clear that the first stage was able to land safely on the barge about 600km off the Florida coast.
The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at sunset on Friday (local time) from Cape Canaveral, Fla. “Didn’t expect this one to work ([very] hot renetry), but next flight has a good chance”.
SES-9 is the largest satellite dedicated to serving the Asia-Pacific region for SES. Due the plan of SpaceX to lift SES-9 as far as possible, after second burn target supersynchonous transfer orbit was planned for 39300 km x 290 km with inclination on 28°.
While the rocket landing attempt drew much of the attention for today’s launch, the mission’s main objective was to get the SES-9 satellite aloft for SES.
It wasn’t until about an hour later that Elon Musk tweeted that the “rocket landed hard on the droneship”.
However, Musk said the first stage came down too hard on the barge, resulting in a failed landing.
SpaceX’s last rocket recovery attempt, made in January, was on a mission that sent a satellite into LEO and therefore required a lower speed.
Two earlier launch attempts on February 24 and 25 were scrubbed because of concerns with SpaceX’s super-chilled liquid oxygen propellant.
SpaceX reset the countdown for Tuesday, but the upper winds were so strong this week that the Falcon 9 wasn’t even fueled up again until today.
From my vantage point with the media on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station we could clearly see the stage separation and ignition of the second stage engine. The Amazon billionaire’s New Shepard rocket is not created to deliver satellites or cargo to the International Space Station, which orbits about 200 miles above the planet, but rather to take passengers to the edge of space, about 62 miles above Earth.
SpaceX has not been successful with drone ship landings in the past.
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SpaceX is looking to fly more than 12 Falcon rockets this year, including the first flight of its 27-engine Falcon Heavy booster.
