Watch SpaceX's Falcon 9 Rocket Land, Tip Over, and Explode
SpaceX’s latest attempt to land its reusable Falcon 9 rocket on a ship in the ocean failed again tonight,
but it was a close call — an issue with one of the rocket’s leg-locking
mechanisms caused it to tip over after landing, bringing the test to a
fiery end. Elon Musk just posted a dramatic video to Instagram that
shows the incident up close in footage recorded from the platform; it’s
worth watching as a demonstration of just how precise the landing needs
to be.
“Falcon
lands on droneship, but the lockout collet doesn’t latch on one [of]
the four legs, causing it to tip over post-landing,” Musk says. “[The] root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff.”
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(elonmusk / Instagram)
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Although this was another failure, SpaceX does appear to be making progress toward its goals. The company launched and landed
the Falcon 9 on solid ground last month, in a historic landing that
hints at a less expensive future for commercial space flight.
Courtesy: Yahoo!
Courtesy: Yahoo!
