Just how close did SpaceX come to successfully landing its Falcon 9 rocket on its “autonomous drone ship” in the Atlantic after blasting its Dragon capsule to the International Space Station yesterday? See for yourself: Here’s the video posted by the company, from a chase plane monitoring the attempt.
https://vine.co/v/euEpIVegiIx
Here’s a better look:
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted yesterday afternoon that the Falcon “landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing.”
It’s the second time a Falcon 9 has almost landed on the barge, and it looks like the company came much closer to pulling it off this time than it did before.
Figuring this out will be key to making commercial space more economical by recovering and reusing booster rockets.
