FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

SpaceX Just Tried to Land a Rocket on a Drone Ship

"Close, but no cigar this time."
​Falcon 9 ready for launch. Image: ​NASA

SpaceX launched its CRS-5 mission this morning, and attempted to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a platform in the ocean. It's the first time anyone's tried to recover a rocket in this way.

After a successful launch, SpaceX said the rocket got to the drone ship—but "landed hard."

CEO Elon Musk tweeted, "Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho."

Advertisement

Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

The Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral at 4.47 am EST, sending the Dragon spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station with supplies. It was livestreamed by SpaceX and NASA.

​After the rocket had launched and the first stage separated, we were waiting for information on the attempt to land it on an "autonom​ous spaceport drone ship"—an unanchored 300 by 100 foot platform in the ocean.

From initial SpaceX reports on social media, it looks like the attempt didn't go exactly to plan but still offers a lot of hope for future efforts. The company had been putting chances of success around 50 percent at best, so this is by no means a real setback.

The launch. Image: SpaceX/Livestream screenshot

The idea behind recovering the first stage is a step toward building a​ completely reusable rocket—which would bring the cost of space travel down. Today's launch came after a series of delays, most recently due to a problem with a thrust vect​or control actuator on the second stage of the Falcon 9, which led to the launch being aborted on January 6. The affected part was replaced and this time all went to plan as far as the launch.

While landing the first stage of the rocket as planned would have been a historic moment, the main point of the mission is to get supplies including food, water, clothing, and science experiments to the ISS. The Dragon, which successfully separated from the rocket's stage about ten minutes after launch and entered into a good orbit, should reach the ​station on Monday​, and will deliver 5,000 pounds of cargo. After four weeks, it will return with cargo such as completed experiments and trash.

As for the landing, Musk tweeted to say, "Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced…"

Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015

It sounds like he's already looking toward the next run.