This morning’s SpaceX launch went off without a hitch, sending a Dragon capsule into orbit for a rendezvous with the International Space Station. It marks the latest in a string of successful launches for Elon Musk’s company. However, the experimental portion of the launch—an attempt to land the Falcon 9 launch vehicle on a barge—did not work out so well.
Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 10, 2015
Musk went on to say that this was hard enough to trash some of the support equipment on the barge, though the barge itself will be back for the next attempt. No video is currently available, as the landing attempt took place in the dark and fog. Musk joked that they’ll “piece it together from telemetry and … actual pieces.”