Today, SpaceX launched their 2nd Falcon rocket with a real payload on board.
Falcon 9 took off perfectly, went up into space, and then the first stage detached.
2nd stage, deploying JASON 3 - a complete success. A satellite observing the oceans and able to detect a rise or fall in the ocean up to 1.3 inches.
Stage 1, at about 25KM above Earth, detached. It was short on Delta V to make a RTLS, so the decision was to land on a barge. A barge in the Pacific about 50 miles off the coast.
The barge was in swells about 1.3 meters back and forth. Stage One did a retro burn and made it to the barge. But the swells made it too much for Stage 1 to land safely.
As it returned to land on the barge, it attempted landing, but one of the landing legs broke off and the rocket was destroyed.
An amazing attempt to land on water failed, but with lessons learned. The last attempt to RTLS was an amazing success. Today was kind of a sad day, but a great attempt at the future.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/17/tech...spacex-launch/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkz_lclGXNg
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