SpaceX's attempt to land the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket on a floating ocean platform Saturday was unsuccessful, the company has announced.
The rocket, which carries supplies for the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, has been launched successfully from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 4:47 a.m. ET Saturday.
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The rocket is consisted of two stages: The first stage launches the rocket into space, and then separates from the second stage, which then ignites and delivers the Dragon capsule to the desired orbit. During this mission, the first stage was supposed to come back to Earth gently, by landing on an ocean platform, a feat no one has attempted before.
After the rocket's first stage separated from the capsule, it did make it to the platform, floating some 200 miles off of Jacksonville, Florida, but the landing was "hard," according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
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
There was no major damage to the rocket, Musk said, and the company was unable to get a good video of the landing. Musk promised to piece it together from telemetry and actual pieces of the video.
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
Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced...— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
While the landing part of the mission didn't go as planned, the Dragon capsule is safely on its way toward the ISS.
Ascent phase good. Dragon deployed to Space Station rendezvous orbit.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
Check out the liftoff of Falcon 9 on Saturday in the video below.