An uncrewed Space Exploration Technologies rocket blasted off on Saturday to deliver a cargo capsule to the International Space Station, but narrowly failed a novel test to land itself on a platform in the ocean, the company said.
“Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time,” Space Exploration Technologies founder and chief executive Elon Musk said on Twitter.
The returning rocket ran out of hydraulic fluid to operate its steerable fins, Musk wrote later. “Upcoming flight already has 50 percent more hydraulic fluid, so should have plenty of margin for landing attempt next month,” he added.
SpaceX, as the company is known, has been working to develop a rocket that can be easily refurbished and reflown, potentially slashing launch costs.
NASA used to recover and reuse the space shuttle’s twin solid rocket boosters, which splashed down into the ocean under parachutes. However, recovery and refurbishment was time-consuming and expensive.
SpaceX’s idea is to fly its rockets back to the launch site and touch down on landing legs. The test was the first time a Falcon 9 rocket attempted the touchdown on a platform in the ocean, away from populated areas.
In addition to four landing legs, the rocket was outfitted with four grid fins to stabilize the booster during its descent.
“Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing,” Musk wrote.
The primary purpose of the launch, the 14th of a Falcon 9 rocket, was to send a Dragon cargo ship on its way to the space station, a US$100 billion laboratory that flies about 420km above Earth. It was expected to arrive today.
The rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The discarded 14-story-tall first-stage booster apparently hit its target — a floating platform located about 320km off the Florida coast — then broke into pieces.
The Dragon capsule is loaded with more than 2,300kg of food, supplies and equipment, including an instrument to measure clouds and aerosols in Earth’s atmosphere.
SpaceX is one of two companies hired by NASA to fly cargo to the station following the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011. However, the second firm, Orbital Sciences Corp, was sidelined in October last year after its Antares rocket exploded minutes after liftoff.
The launch on Saturday was the fifth of 12 planned station resupply missions by SpaceX under its US$1.6 billion contract with NASA.
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