SpaceX successfully delivered supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), but could not re-land their Falcon 9 rocket after the launch.
According to NBC News, the rocket and the Dragon capsule took off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. early Saturday morning with the rocket coming back down to Earth shortly after. The rocket found its way back to the designated "autonomous spaceport drone ship" on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean off the coach of Florida, but did not land smoothly.
Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO and founder, gave official updates to the historic attempt on his Twitter account. Musk said the landing was rough and therefore unsuccessful, as some components on the rocket were damaged as a result.
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
Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced... — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
Didn't get good landing/impact video. Pitch dark and foggy. Will piece it together from telemetry and ... actual pieces.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
Am super proud of my crew for making huge strides towards reusability on this mission. You guys rock! — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
SpaceX has been successful in re-landing its Flacon 9 rocket in various test runs, but never before on an official NASA-contracted ISS resupply mission. Being able to reuse rockets would seriously lower the cost of these routine resupply missions.
NASA currently has contracts in place with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences to run these missions, but the former could save the space agency money if they realize their goal with the Falcon 9 rocket.
"It's like we're back in the era of early aircraft testing," Charles Lurio, a noted space consultant, told NBC News, "plenty more chances to get it 100 percent right at low cost, and at no cost to the taxpayer."
