SpaceX Successfully Launches Satellite But Rocket Fails Landing

SpaceX also attempted to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean this morning but failed, marking the fourth time it has missed the mark.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted a video of the botched landing on Instagram, showing the rocket setting down softly but then toppling over and exploding on impact. “Won’t be last RUD [Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly], but am optimistic about upcoming ship landing”. SpaceX says the booster tipped over due to a landing-leg failure.

Jason-3 lifted off at 10:42 am PST from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, under foggy skies with winds of 5 miles per hour (8 km/h).

This was the third time the Hawthorne-based company failed to accomplish a clean sea landing, although the company brought a Falcon rocket stage back to terra firma at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on December 21 in what many hailed as an engineering feat. On Sunday, the private space agency opted for an ocean landing attempt.

Mission control said that the second stage reignition had been successful and that the Jason-3 satellite had been deployed.

Last year, SpaceX tried twice to land on the drone ship.

But the rocket’s attempt to land on a platform in the Pacific Ocean on its return to Earth did not go to plan, officials have said.

SpaceX’s primary mission Sunday was to send the Jason-3 satellite into orbit.

The launch succeeded in sending the U.S.- and European-owned Jason-3 satellite into orbit. The attempt comes only one month after making history by landing a booster rocket upright back on Earth after delivering a satellite into orbit.

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.

Musk tweeted his congratulations, but followed up with a series of tweets debating Bezos’ use of the word “rarest”.

SpaceX is one of several companies that contracted with the USA space agency NASA to ferry supplies, and eventually astronauts, to the International Space Station.

The fact the SpaceX rocket approached at optimum speed, was within 1.3 metres of the droneship’s centre, and was only let down by a lockout failing to latch show promise for future attempts.

The satellite being launched Sunday is called Jason-3, which would help the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration monitor sea levels and forecast hurricane intensities and tides for commercial shipping.