SpaceX launches satellite but botches landing

“Touchdown speed was OK, but a leg lockout didn’t latch, so it tipped over after landing”, SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk wrote on Twitter.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded after failing to land on a sea platform correctly following the successful launch of a joint US-European satellite.

The 22-storey tall rocket was blasted through thick fog from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast early Sunday morning. The project is being led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in collaboration with the United States space agency NASA, CNES (the French Space Agency) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.

“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”. Jason-3 will track sea-level changes for purposes such as improved hurricane forecasting.

Although the rocket successfully touched down on the craft, one of its landing legs failed to latch into position which caused it to tip over.

Indeed, like Musk said, the residual pieces of the crash are bigger this time compared to the first two similar landing attempts a year ago, which ended in a giant explosion and lots of small rocket pieces scattered across the ship’s deck and nearby seafloor.

SpaceX, a Hawthorne-based company founded by business magnate and inventor, Elon Musk, built the rocket. “Won’t be last RUD, but am optimistic about upcoming ship landing”.

The exact launch time was 10:42:18.386 a.m. PST, or 1:42:18.386 p.m. EST – “the targeted bulls-eye”, according to NASA Launch Commentator George Diller.

The private spaceflight company SpaceX did successfully launch an ocean studies satellite called Jason 3 into orbit yesterday (January 17, 2016).

SpaceX said it lost contact with its live video link of the floating barge, or droneship, before the rocket came in for a landing, so no images were immediately available. The mission is planned to last at least five years. However, it is just not possible for all of SpaceX’s rockets to take advantage of a ground landing, since not all of them have the spare fuel to return to the launch site.