The rocket launched on Saturday from Florida, US, put a cargo capsule en route to the International Space Station

Jan 12, 2015 08:08 GMT  ·  By
This past Saturday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo capsule
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   This past Saturday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo capsule

This past Saturday, SpaceX, an American space transport services company headquartered in the city of Hawthorne in California, US, and founded by billionaire Elon Musk, sent a cargo capsule on its way to the International Space Station.

The cargo capsule left Earth nestled atop a booster rocket that launched at precisely 4:47am EST from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Should things go as planned, it will reach its destination this Monday.

The thing is that, as is turns out, the booster rocket that served to put the cargo capsule en route to the International Space Station is not doing all that great. On the contrary, word has it that, after failing to make a smooth landing on a barge, as was expected of it, it ended up in pieces in the Atlantic.

What exactly happened to the SpaceX rocket?

Not at all surprisingly, information on this incident is, at least for the time being, scarce. What we do know is that, having parted ways with the Dragon cargo capsule, the Falcon 9 booster rocket was supposed to find its way back to Earth.

More precisely, the rocket was supposed to land on a custom-built barge that was patiently waiting for it to return home in the waters off the coast of Florida. Unfortunately, Falcon 9's landing was not as smooth as the SpaceX brainiacs behind this mission had hoped it would be.

Thus, it appears that the rocket crashed into the landing barge and broke apart. This is yet to be confirmed, but word has it that Falcon 9 failed to place itself on the barge waiting for it not far from Florida's coastline because, shortly before landing, the fins guiding it ran out of hydraulic fluid.

As explained by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, “Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho. Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing.”

“While the rocket made it to the drone ship, it landed hard. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get good landing video because of the dark and fog, but we are in the process of evaluating invaluable telemetry data which will inform future attempts,” reads a SpaceX statement concerning this incident.

The good news is that, as mentioned, the Dragon cargo capsule that launched aboard this Falcon 9 booster rocket and that is carrying about 5,000 pounds (nearly 2,300 kilograms) worth of supplies is now just hours away from reaching the International Space Station.

Why try to land a booster rocket on a barge, to begin with?

True, landing a rocket back on Earth just minutes after sending it into space is pretty darn tricky, and the Falcon 9 incident that occurred this past Saturday more than proves it. Still, the folks behind SpaceX say that trying to pull such a stunt is well worth it.

Thus, the reason this space transport services company is now doing its best to figure out a way to recover booster rockets following a launch is that doing so on a regular basis stands to drastically reduce space exploration costs. Hence, despite this failed attempt, SpaceX will soon once again try to land a booster rocket on a barge.

The booster rocket was expected to land on a barge
The booster rocket was expected to land on a barge

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This past Saturday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon cargo capsule
The booster rocket was expected to land on a barge
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