European ocean-monitoring satellite launches

But what the video really reveals is not a failure but just another tiny step toward SpaceX’s ultimate goal of using efficient re-entry rockets that will soon make space missions more affordable.

SpaceX was successful in December in landing its rocket upright on land, and it admits sea landings are more hard. This was the fourth time a rocket failed to complete the landing process at sea. 1 configuration of the rocket, which will be replaced with the same Falcon 9 Full Thrust version that successfully landed last month. The program was canceled in 2008.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be launched this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base, transporting the Jason-3 weather satellite into orbit.

But according to the latest announcements, it appears that one of the landing legs broke upon touch down because the rocket was coming in too fast, suggesting that the touch down was unsuccessful.

“After further data review, stage landed softly but leg 3 didn’t lockout”.

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

Rockets are the portion of spacecrafts that provide the boost for liftoff, but they’re typically discarded after launch.

“As we touched down, it was a slightly harder landing than we expected, and it looks like one of the landing legs may have broken as we touched down on the drone ship”, said John Federspiel, SpaceX’s lead mechanical design engineer.

A video of the mishap posted online by Space X’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk shows the large rocket landing slightly askew before keeling over and exploding as it hits the ground.

Meanwhile in space, the Jason 3 satellite made it into orbit, and it’s coasting for a short while before its second stage restarts.

U.S. and French scientists have launched a new satellite capable of measuring the height of the world’s oceans to within 4cm.

“The measurements from Jason-3 will advance our efforts to understand Earth as an integrated system by increasing our knowledge of sea level changes and the ocean’s roles in climate”. If the technology is developed correctly, it has the potential to drastically cut the cost of space travel.

Kevin Meissner, who used to work for SpaceX, told Xinhua, “the sea landing doesn’t require much fuel because you don’t need to turn around and fly all the way back to the land”.