SpaceX lands falcon 9 booster on drone ship: originally published April 8

Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX pulled off the first successful sea landing off a rocket. It was the fifth time the company has attempt to land the booster stage of their Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship. The previous four attempts all ended up in disaster with the boosters either exploding or tipping over.

“This is a really good milestone for the future of spaceflight,” SpaceX’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, told reporters afterward at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “It’s another step toward the stars.”

The first attempt at landing the first stage of Falcon 9 took place on Jan 10, 2015. On that day they had a successful launch that sent the Dragon supply craft on course to re-supply the ISS (international space station). Even though the launch went fine the attempted landing went wrong when one of the fins used in maneuvering the booster ran out of hydraulic fluid and the Falcon 9 booster exploded on impact with the drone ship.

The second attempt came during an April 14, 2015 re-supply mission to the ISS. Once again the launch went off without a hitch and sent the Dragon spacecraft on its way to the ISS. This time it was a stuck throttle valve on the booster that caused an excess in vertical thrust. The booster ended up landing off balance and tipped over and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.

On Dec 21, 2015 SpaceX did land the first stage of a Falcon 9 but it was on land. The successful land came after a successful launch to put the Orbcomm commutation satellite in orbit. It was the first launch of an upgraded Falcon 9 dubbed the Falcon 9 full thrust.

The third attempt at a sea landing came on Jan 17, 2016 when SpaceX launched the Jason 3 satellite. This time the booster came to a soft landing on the drone ship and everything seemed fine. Unfortunately one of the land legs failed just after the landing and the booster tipped over on the barge and exploded.

The fourth attempt came when SpaceX successfully launched the SES-9 satellite. The day before the launch SpaceX CEO Elom Musk said that they were not expecting a successful landing. His reasoning for such prediction was the larger than normal mass at launch time and a lack of fuel for a successful recovery. The booster did reach the drone but once again it landed to hard and exploded.