SpaceX’s rocket recycle plan has another setback

During the early hours of this morning, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted an Instagram video showing the company’s latest unsuccessful attempt to land a Falcon 9 rocket booster on an automated landing platform at sea.

The failed water landing attempt follows the company’s historic return to a landing site on the coast of Florida in December, when SpaceX became the first company to deliver a payload to orbit and then successfully fly the booster back to Earth.

The 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, Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. 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.

SpaceX does not yet have US government’s permission to land a rocket at the Vandenberg Air Force Base from where it took off. Jason-3, an worldwide mission with NASA participation, will continue a 23-year record of monitoring global sea level rise. “Ship landings are not needed for flexibility or to save fuel costs”. The first two attempts at this experimental landing ended with fantastic explosions as the Falcon 9 rocket failed to stick the landing just right.

In a tweet, Musk said “touchdown speed was ok” but the latch on one leg did not fastened properly ‘so it tipped over after landing’.

The mission is planned to last at least three years, with a goal of five years.

SpaceX’s rocket approaches the centre of landing droneship in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX’s two previous attempts to land a rocket on a barge in the Atlantic have failed, though last month the company successfully landed a rocket vertically at Cape Canaveral, Fla., after dropping satellites into orbit.

“First stage on target at droneship but looks like hard landing; broke landing leg”, SpaceX posted during the flight on Twitter.

The mission is expected to improve weather, climate and ocean forecasts.

The U.S. based private company headed by Elon Musk plans to re-use the landed rockets in hopes of making spaceflight cheaper.