SpaceX successfully launches rocket, fails to make landing

The SpaceX Falcon 9 had successfully delivered a NASA probe when it attempted to land on a ship floating in the Pacific Ocean.

On Sunday, SpaceX’s Falcon booster successfully lifted the Jason-3 satellite into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

“SpaceX is continuing to attempt ocean landings as it will give the company better flexibility in recovering higher launch velocity rockets”.

Image: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches with the Jason-3 spacecraft. Jason-3 will track sea-level changes for purposes such as improved hurricane forecasting.

The mission itself went of without a hitch, and the satellite, dubbed Jason-3, was placed into orbit exactly as planned.

It was the third time the company failed to accomplish a clean sea landing, although the company brought a Falcon rocket stage back to Cape Canaveral, Fla., on December 21. These data provide scientists with essential information about global and regional changes in the Earth’s seas such as tracking sea level rise that threatens the resilience of coastal communities and the health of our environment.

NOAA, in collaboration with the European partners, is responsible for the Jason-3 mission. Barely three years ago, Mr. Musk and his team estimated the chances of pulling off the technical coup of retrieving a rocket for another flight to be one in five. It appears the landing would have been successful had the part not malfunctioned, as the rocket landed within a few yards of the droneship’s center. However, Musk later clarified events, explaining the leg had failed to deploy in the seconds prior to landing, meaning that however gentle the touchdown, it was nearly certain to come crashing down.

Competitor Blue Origin, headed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, succeeded in landing a suborbital rocket in November.

He said: “Definitely harder to land on a ship”.

It said the bid to nail the experimental landing of the first stage on the SpaceX drone ship “Just Read the Instructions”, had been a “secondary test objective”. Its successor, Jason-1, operated from 2001 to 2013.

The unmanned mission, powered by a SpaceX rocket, accomplished its primary goal of carrying a satellite into low orbit.