The company Elon musk SpaceX is aggressively trying to land the first stage Falcon 9 rockets to automatically barge in the ocean. Unfortunately, the next (third) attempt to do it once again failed.
Launched on January 17, the rocket, the Falcon 9 successfully launched a payload — Jason-3 — into orbit. The purpose of the satellite is the observation of the ocean level, the preparations for the mission took more than seven years. The spent first stage of the rocket tried to land on a special barge in the ocean, but was unable to stay upright, lying on its side and exploded.
SpaceX reported that the cause of the accident was the failure of one of the landing legs, probably the result of a hard landing. It is also possible, the role played by high waves that reached at the time of planting, a height of 5 meters.
In the video posted by Elon Musk on Twitter, you can see how after landing on a barge is one of the supports breaks and the rocket slowly begins to fall on its side.
Despite the setback, SpaceX has already stated that it will not stop attempts to carry out sea landing in the future. We will remind, in the end of last year the company managed to land the spent first stage of the rocket on a specially equipped site on the ground.