Footage shows SpaceX rocket explode into fireball after crash landing on ship

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that exploded into a fiery ball just after landing at sea off California on Sunday had descended with pinpoint accuracy onto an ocean barge before a landing leg buckled, causing the booster to tip over, a landing video showed. On Sunday, the private space agency opted for an ocean landing attempt.

Musk stated on social media a leg lockout did not latch, so the rocket tipped over after landing.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the company’s third attempt to safely bring back a rocket booster and have it safely land on a floating ocean barge ended in an explosion.

SpaceX hopes to reduce launch costs by reusing rockets rather than having them fall into the ocean.

“That really is the fundamental breakthrough needed to revolutionize access to space”, he said in June 2015.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has blasted off from California to put a climate-monitoring satellite into orbit, then turned around and botched an attempted landing on a platform at sea.

“More than 90 percent of all the heat being trapped in the Earth’s system…is actually going into the ocean”, Laury Miller, Jason-3 lead scientist, said ahead of the launch.

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

SpaceX was unable to land its Falcon 9 rocket after putting a climate-monitoring satellite into orbit, failing in its bid to recycle rockets.

Main aim of the mission is to offer a more precise look at how global warming and sea level rise affect wind speeds and currents as close as one kilometer (0.6 miles) from shore.

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

Jason-3 will continue the research started in 1992 by measuring the topography of the ocean floor which could help forecast weather patterns, predict hurricane intensity and basically monitor Earth’s climate.

Everything appeared to go according to plan until the moment the rocket landed on the droneship.

The $180 million mission is expected to operate for at least five years.

The Jason-3 satellite is the joint production of NOAA, NASA, the French space agency CNES, and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).