SpaceX will try again to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating barge in June, when its next mission to the International Space Station is scheduled. Tuesday’s launch of the rocket to take the Dragon supply spacecraft to the station was a success, but the landing was not. The rocket made it to the barge but ended up in pieces. “Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted afterward. The company released avideo of the landing Wednesday. NASA has slated June 19 for the next resupply launch, which will be the seventh for SpaceX.
SpaceX has gone through three rockets this year in its quest to perfect the land-and-reuse concept. In January, the Falcon crashed on the barge after running out of hydraulic fluid. In February, the barge landing was scrapped due to rough seas and the rocket went into the ocean.Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX’s vice president for mission assurance, told Florida Today Tuesday’s failure is under examination, and SpaceX has made progress in its goal. “I’m pretty sure we’ll figure this out and make it work on the barge,” he said. “It’s just a matter of finding the right parameters, finding the right method to do this.”
