Today (Jan. 17), the company successfully launched an ocean-measuring satellite for NASA, and attempted to return the first stage of the rocket safely back to earth and land it on an unmanned ship floating off the California coast.
On December 21, a SpaceX rocket carried 11 satellites into space and then returned to Earth for a soft landing. It was a big deal, because recovering the rocket booster (as opposed to dumping it into the ocean) sets the company up to reuse it, and that
Let's be fair: vertical-landing a rocket is difficult, so it's not surprising that SpaceX's latest attempt ranked as “almost right”. After a launch in which nothing else went wrong, the attempt to drop the first stage gently on the good ship RTFM
Let's be fair: vertical-landing a rocket is difficult, so it's not surprising that SpaceX's latest attempt ranked as “almost right”. After a launch in which nothing else went wrong, the attempt to drop the first stage gently on the good ship RTFM
SpaceX announced a successful satellite launch on Sunday — but failed an attempted sea-landing of a rocket booster, missing a goal that has repeatedly eluded the grasp of the Los Angeles-based rocket company. Elon Musk's SpaceX has been focused on