Since acquiring its patent, Blue Origin has yet to launch an orbital rocket, let alone land one. (This forced SpaceX to go to court, and its challenge against the patent eventually succeeded.) But there is a big difference in knowing something and actually doing something. Nearly a decade ago, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin patented the concept of landing a rocket on a barge for this very reason. When touching down at sea, both the rocket and the drone ship are moving, and there are sea states and more to consider. When landing on the coast, only the rocket is moving. But landing on a drone ship is that much more difficult. "And we were like, well, we didn't really account for that." Need for seaĪ few months prior to this boat landing, of course, SpaceX had successfully returned a Falcon 9 first stage to its "landing zone" along the Florida coast, near its launch pad. "It even surprised us that we suddenly had ten first stages or something like that," Hans Koenigsmann, one of SpaceX's earliest hires, said a few years afterward. This caught some SpaceX engineers off guard.
#SPACEX FALCON 9 MISSED LANDING FULL#
In my mind, landing a Falcon 9 first stage at sea represented an essential step toward reducing the cost of getting people and payloads into space and unlocked a bright spacefaring future.Īfter nearly a dozen failed attempts, subsequent landings soon filled a SpaceX hangar full of used rockets. This breakthrough in rocket technology washed away any regrets I had about missing Apollo. As whitecaps crashed into the side of the boat, it seemed like a portal opening into the future. I was not prepared for the experience of watching a skinny, black-and-white rocket fall out of the sky against the azure backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean and land on a small drone ship. I lived with that regret for decades-right up until April 8, 2016.įive years ago today, SpaceX successfully landed a Falcon 9 rocket first stage on a boat.
As my interest in space grew over the years and writing about this industry became my profession, I felt a deepening sense of regret for missing that glorious moment of triumph in our shared space history. More than 12 SpaceX flights are expected this year.I was born a mere four months after the final Apollo astronauts brushed gray dust from their spacesuits and lifted off from the Moon. Last December SpaceX managed to land a rocket upright on solid ground, but several attempts at ocean touchdowns have failed. The company, headed by Internet entrepreneur Musk, is trying to perfect its technique of recycling rocket parts in order to make spaceflight cheaper and more sustainable. profile, a successful landing is not expected," SpaceX said in a statement before the launch. Hopes for a successful landing of the rocket back on to the sea platform had been played down by SpaceX because of the speed at which it was traveling: "Given this mission's unique. The launch had been delayed four times since February 24. Musk wants to retrieve and reuse boosters to save time and money. "But next flight has a good chance." Usually, rocket boosters just fall into the sea. Didn't expect this one to work," Musk wrote on Twitter. Half an hour later, the company indicated the test was unsuccessful. Just 10 minutes into the flight, the television camera on the platform cut out. The aim was to land the discarded, first-stage booster on to a barge in the Atlantic. "Thanks for riding on Falcon 9! Looking forward to future missions," he tweeted.īut the Falcon 9 rocket crashed when it tried to come back to earth heading for a platform about 645 kilometers from the coast of Florida. Head of the private California-based SpaceX company, Elon Musk, reported the target altitude of 40,600 kilometers (25,227 miles) was achieved. It successfully carried a broadcasting satellite for Luxembourg-based company SES up into space. The Falcon 9 rocket carrying a 5,721 kilogram, Boeing-built satellite lifted off at sunset from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Friday evening, 6:35 p.m.
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