SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket landed on a barge in the Atlantic a few minutes ago, but the landing was “too hard for survival” of the rocket, according to Elon Musk, the company’s CEO.
It’s the second time a Falcon 9 has crash-landed on the “autonomous drone ship.” Figuring this out will be key to making commercial space more economical by recovering and reusing booster rockets.
Ascent successful. Dragon enroute to Space Station. Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015
The launch of the Falcon 9 was successful, putting the Dragon spaceship into orbit, en route to the International Space Station. On board is a test satellite from Seattle-area asteroid mining company Planetary Resources. The company is looking to recover from the loss of its earlier satellite as part of the October explosion of an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket lifting off from Wallops, Va.
Update, 2 p.m. Here’s the latest from Elon Musk
Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing pic.twitter.com/eJWzN6KSJa
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015
