SpaceX rocket explodes after landing

What SpaceX is really interested in doing is to land one of those Falcon 9 reusable rockets on a floating barge in the ocean, and it has so far been unable to do that.

The rocket successfully delivered an ocean-monitoring satellite into orbit after launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Los Angeles.

In January 2015, SpaceX attempted to land the Falcon 9 on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The US space agency NASA then confirmed the Jason-3 satellite “ready for science operations!”

Alan Boyle at GeekWire – who covered the launch and landing thoroughly – said that yesterday’s sea landing was also because SpaceX wasn’t able to obtain regulatory approval for an on-land touchdown in California.

The Falcon 9 rocket launched at 10:42 a.m. carrying Jason 3, a NASA and NOAA satellite.

Despite the vast technical challenges of trying to slow a rocket traveling at 5,000 miles per hour and land it on a platform in the Pacific Ocean, if SpaceX manages to accomplish this goal, it would give the company more options for staging low-priced space flights.

Mr Musk’s Instagram post said the footage showed the cause of the crash could have been due to ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff.

But about 25 minutes after the rocket lifted off, SpaceX tweeted, “First stage on target at droneship but looks like hard landing; broke landing leg…Second stage re-ignition successful”. He was encouraged by the most recent rocket landing attempt, saying that “at least the pieces were bigger this time!” Jason-3 will join Jason-2, which was launched in 2008.

A U.S.-European satellite created to detect and measure ocean phenomena has launched aboard a SpaceX rocket under mostly cloudy skies from the California coast.

Koenigsmann also confirmed that SpaceX plans another three or four Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg AFB throughout this year. After the botched landing, Mr. Musk, SpaceX’s founder, chief executive and top designer, sent a Tweet stressing that it is “definitely harder to land on a ship”, which he compared to the difference between aiming for “an aircraft carrier vs. land…”