Satellite SpaceX fail as rocket topples over while landing

These landing attempts are part of SpaceX’s quest to develop fully and rapidly reusable rockets — technology that company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said could slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100, potentially making Mars colonies economically feasible.

The narrow launch window begins at 10:42 a.m. If that launch is scrubbed, a backup launch window is set for 10:31 a.m. Monday.

After successfully boosting the second stage and its cargo to space, the first stage booster turned itself around for re-entry performing a series of engine burns to slow down as grid fins and Global Positioning System tracking helped guide the rocket to a drone ship floating 186 miles south of the launch site in the middle of the Pacific. The problem with the landing was a technical issue concerning one of the landing legs. During a press conference on Friday, SpaceX vice president of mission assurance Hans Koenigsmann said that they’d like to attempt a land recovery at Vandenberg Air Force Base in the future.

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 is working to land rockets, which generally cost between $60 million and $90 million, safely so that they can be reused; which would lower the cost of space travel significantly.

The first stage of the rocket made it back to the platform, but one of the rocket’s legs failed to latch into position, subsequently breaking upon landing.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be launched this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base, transporting the Jason-3 weather satellite into orbit. But Musk appeared undaunted, as he said on Twitter that he was “optimistic about (an) upcoming ship landing”. Jason-3, an worldwide mission with NASA participation, will continue a 23-year record of monitoring global sea level rise.

“Jason allows us to get the big picture in terms of sea-level change in the years to come”, said Laury Miller, Jason-3 program scientist.

However, no other company has attempted the ocean landing that SpaceX is trying to achieve.

The Falcon 9’s first stage, which stands 14 stories tall and measures 12 feet (3.7 meters) in diameter, flew on course to the drone ship Sunday after liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.