SpaceX had a good day today: their launch’s primary mission, deliver the Jason 3 Satellite was successful. Their secondary mission, landing the first stage on a barge, didn’t quite land as expected.
We’ll update as we get more information.
The company had been streaming the launch and experienced loss of signal from the first stage, leaving everyone with a bit of a cliffhanger as to the stage’s fate.
When the live stream returned, a SpaceX official noted that the first stage came in “on target”, but that it came in harder than expected. They noted that one of the struts seems to have broken, and it’s not standing upright on the barge.
Sponsored
As our very own Maddie Stone noted on twitter, an ocean landing is incredibly hard to accomplish. Even though SpaceX landed one of their rockets last month, they did so on solid ground. SpaceX said that the landing came in hard, and it appears that the seas were more choppy than anticipated.
This is SpaceX’s third failed attempt to land on a barge. Despite the setback, barge landings do offer the company some additional flexibility for landing, even if the weather adds in an additional level of complexity.
Meanwhile in space, the Jason 3 satellite made it into orbit, and it’s coasting for a short while before its second stage restarts.
This post is being updated.