SpaceX fails to stick ocean landing

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket failed to successfully land after being launched into space Sunday.

Musk said the lockout device, a collet, didn’t latch on one of the rocket’s four legs, causing it to tip over after landing.

The root cause of the incident could be ice buildup in the rocket due to condensation from heavy fog during liftoff, Musk wrote.

The failed landing was a setback for the Hawthorne, California, company’s plan to reduce space launch costs by reusing rockets rather than having them fall into the ocean.

The main goal of the whole occasion, to get the $180 million Jason-3 satellite into orbit, went smoothly, and the attempted rocket recovery to a drone ship was the result of SpaceX being unable to receive “environmental approval” to bring its rocket back to land.

It was Musk’s fourth attempt to safely land a SpaceX rocket at sea.

Previous attempts had come close to landing on the barge but were destroyed when they narrowly missed the mark and suffered crash landings.

But when the rocket reached its landing pad on ocean barge, which is only 300 by 170 feet, it exploded. In a remarkable Instagram post, the craft can be seen easing down onto the barge, but as soon as it makes contact, leans to the right. But its secondary goal – to land the rocket upright on a floating platform called a droneship – ended in a fiery explosion.

The satellite that was launched into space, named Jason-3, will measure ocean levels on the Earth’s surface.

But last month, one of the Falcon 9 rockets landed at Cape Canaveral, Fla., representing the first time an unmanned craft landed vertically at the site.

“Jason-3 data will be used for monitoring global sea level rise, researching human impacts on oceans, aiding prediction of hurricane intensity, and operational marine navigation”, NASA said. SpaceX blamed the toppling rocket on a broken leg, with the lack of support for the rocket on one side allowing it to fall sideways.

Jason-3 is a project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the French space agency Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.