Ascent successful. Dragon enroute to Space Station. Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015
Another day, another ocean-based reusable rocket landing mission.
Update 2: According to Elon Musk (via Twitter), the Falcon 9 rocket landed on SpaceX’s ocean platform, but the impact was “…too hard for survival.” The rest of the mission was a success, as the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket launched, and the capsule is on its way to the ISS.
Update: Due to inclement weather, the launch has been postponed to tomorrow at 4:10pm Eastern Time.
Original Story: SpaceX will make another rocket landing attempt today, as its CRS-6 rocket is due to blast off around 4:33pm Eastern Time.
CRS-6 is a full mission, with the Dragon capsule tasked to couple with the International Space Station after a successful launch. But after the Dragon detaches from the Falcon 9 rocket, the rocket’s first stage will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, and attempt to land on SpaceX’s ocean-based floating platform.
SpaceX’s first attempt to land a reusable Falcon 9 rocket ended with the rocket exploding on the platform due to a bad angle, while the second attempt was scrubbed due to bad weather.
The Falcon 9 landing aside, CRS-6 a standard ISS resupply mission, done on contract with NASA. The Dragon capsule will have, among other cargo, 15 small satellites to be used in ISS missions. The unmanned Falcon/Dragon missions currently only carry hardware and supplies to the ISS, but crew changes will eventually )hopefully) be added to the platform as well.
Source: SpaceX
