SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket attempts to land, tips over and explodes

The joint NASA-European ocean surveillance satellite named Jason-3 is poised for blastoff from SpaceX’s California launch pad on Sunday, Jan. 17 – followed immediately by another Falcon 9 rocket recovery landing on a barge at sea. It was a near miss.

A rocket that propelled an ocean-monitoring satellite into space has toppled over while landing on a floating barge after one of its support legs failed to lock. The rocket tipped over and exploded shortly after reaching the ship.

So said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after his Falcon 9 rocket crashed and burned in the company’s third attempt at landing it on a giant barge floating in the sea. Posting a spectacular video of the landing to Instagram, Musk speculated the root cause may have been ice buildup from condensation created from heavy fog before the rocket launched.

Another company official said the botched landing was secondary to the successful launch of the weather satellite. It was meant to land on an unmanned sea-based barge. Even though SpaceX landed one of their rockets last month, they did so on solid ground. Although the landings have largely gone wrong, SpaceX has shown itself to be reliable in getting its payloads into space. The satellite was left in low-Earth orbit and will monitor sea level rise and the planet’s oceans.

Jason-3 is created to bounce radio waves off the ocean and time how long it takes the reflected signals to return.

SpaceX successfully landed its Falcon first stage on the ground at Cape Canaveral back in December. but ocean landings are proving to be more hard.

SpaceX, a Hawthorne-based company founded by business magnate and inventor, Elon Musk, built the rocket.

“Similar to an aircraft carrier vs land: much smaller target area, that’s also translating and rotating”. In reference to previous failed landings, Musk remarked: “at least the pieces were bigger this time!”

Jason-3 is an global mission.

Nasa Washington associate administrator for science John Grunsfeld said: “Jason-3 is a prime example of how our nation leverages Nasa’s expertise in space and scientific exploration to help address critical global challenges in collaboration with NOAA and our worldwide partners”.