A historic first attempt to land a reusable rocket on a floating barge – in what would have been a major leap forward in slashing the cost of space travel – has failed.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket was launched by private space company SpaceX from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 4.47am EST (9.47am GMT) after a previous attempt on Tuesday was aborted a minute before take-off because of technical problems.
An unmanned Dragon spacecraft packed with more than two tons of food and equipment for the International Space Station is expected to reach the station on Monday. The ship was confirmed to be en route to the ISS nine minutes after take-off.
But it was the recovery of the first stage that was the all-important element of the mission. SpaceX wanted to land the rocket on a barge out at sea, 200 miles off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida.
The ability to land a rocket’s first stage intact instead of allowing it to burn up in the atmosphere will slash the cost of space missions, making them more attractive to private operators such as SpaceX.
But the historic landing attempt failed. Around 20 minutes after take-off, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX tweeted: “Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.
“Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced…”, he added.
It was an immense challenge, with the 138ft long rocket travelling at nearly one mile a second as it came in to land on the 300ft by 100ft “autonomous spaceport drone ship”. SpaceX rated its chances of success at 50%.
Landing the craft on the barge was akin to “trying to balance a rubber broomstick on your hand in the middle of a wind storm,” said a statement on the company’s website before the mission.
It added: “During previous attempts, we could only expect a landing accuracy of within 10 kilometres (six miles). For this attempt, we’re targeting a landing accuracy of within 10 metres (33 feet).”
The mission is still likely to provide valuable data to assist in planning future operations.
It is SpaceX’s fifth of 12 planned under a $1bn (£0.66m) contract with Nasa to supply the ISS.
