SpaceX launches climate satellite but botches ocean landing

SpaceX says the booster tipped over due to a landing-leg failure.

The offshore landing attempt follows on the heels of SpaceX’s successful Falcon 9 rocket landing on a land-based pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on December 21, which was considered an important milestone in the space industry and a big step toward making rockets reusable.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen as it launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4 East with the Jason-3 spacecraft onboard on Jan 17, 2016. Nailing the landing is huge for SpaceX and space travel as a whole because Musk has previously said he believes reusing rockets – which cost as much as a commercial airplane – could reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of one hundred.

Despite foggy weather, the launch was nearly flawless and NASA’S Jason-3 satellite, which weights 1,124 pounds and is about 3.3-feet across, was successfully placed in the low-earth orbit.

The technology will monitor global sea surface heights, tropical cyclones and help support seasonal and coastal forecasts.

“However, that was not what prevented it being good”.

The mission of Jason-3 is to continue an unbroken record of more than two decades of sea level measurements from orbit.

Musk appeared positive in his tweet after the troubled landing, saying it was not like rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD).

Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of mission assurance for SpaceX, said previously that the current rocket would have been able to return to land, but the company does not have environmental approval at Vandenberg yet.

Well, although the event is definitely a setback to the Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk backed SpaceX, it has known such events in the past too and has kept on trying.

Recycling engines and the Falcon 9’s 14-story, aluminum-lithium alloy first stage also may enable SpaceX, already the cheapest launch provider in its category, to further undercut USA and European rivals.

We’ll update as we get more information.

NOAA is one of five agencies partnering on the $180 million, five-year Jason-3 programme.

Despite the end result, the attempt is “the closest the company has come to successfully landing a booster at sea”, writes Wired, while Musk remained upbeat on Twitter, saying he was “optimistic about the ship’s upcoming landing”.