SpaceX Satellite Launch Succeeds, But Rocket Crash Lands

[Purveyor]

Miami (AFP) - SpaceX successfully launched a communications satellite to a distant orbit but failed, as expected, to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on an ocean platform.

The rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 6:36 pm (2336 GMT), propelling the satellite, known as SES-9, built by Boeing for the Luxembourg-based company SES.

The satellite successfully reached its geostationary orbit more than 24,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) above the Earth, about 100 times as high as the International Space Station.

From there it will deliver broadband and television channels to southeast Asia.

"Target altitude of 40,600 kilometers achieved," wrote SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on Twitter.

"Thanks @SES_Satellites for riding on Falcon 9! Look forward to future missions."

After the launch, SpaceX tried to land the first stage of its rocket on a platform floating in the Atlantic Ocean about 375 miles (600 kilometers) off the east coast of Florida.

The droneship, as it is called, is marked with a large "X" and the words, "Of Course I Still Love You."

Grainy video footage showed a bright light approaching the droneship from the upper left, before the live feed cut out.

"Rocket landed hard on the droneship. Didn't expect this one to work," Musk wrote on Twitter.

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http://news.yahoo.com/spacex-launches-satellite-toward-distant-orbit-001415770.html

[longship]

1. SpaceX is cool!

One of these days, they're going to plant one of those first stages on a drone ship.

Hell! It's a drone ship that lands rockets! (Well, not yet. Maybe soon.)

[JimDandy]

2. So the floating landing pad, or droneship as they call it, and the rocket were both destroyed? n/t

[backscatter712]

3. The droneship is quite a bit more robust than the rocket.

There have been several crashes on the droneships, but the droneship survives.

What happened here was that SpaceX agreed to give its customer, SES a launch with a higher-energy orbit than originally planned, because there have been quite a few delays, and the higher-energy orbit will let the satellite reach its final destination, geosynchronous orbit, much faster.

The tradeoff was that it used more fuel, so that's less fuel available for the landing experiments. This one, there was juuuuuuust enough fuel for a try, but the rocket had to come in fast and hot because there wasn't enough fuel to do the more conservative landing approach.

It'll probably take a few more years of these experiments before landing and reuse of the first stage is ready for prime time. This is why they do experiments.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. Who would have thought landing a rocket on a floating pad would be difficult?

My hat is off to Elon Musk and SpaceX, of course. If anyone can do it, they can.