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ROCKET SCIENCE
Watch SpaceX nearly land rocket on floating barge
by Danielle Haynes
Hawthorne, Calif. (UPI) Jan 16, 2015


disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

SpaceX tried -- and failed -- to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a floating barge Saturday, but it came oh-so-close to success, a new video of the botched landing shows.

The aerospace company on Friday posted a video to Vine showing the rocket coming close to a soft landing on the sea platform, but instead crashing into it.

CEO Elon Musk tweeted Saturday morning that the rocket came down hard during the first attempt at a landing. He had predicted there was a 50 percent chance of success after the rocket launched a Dragon cargo capsule to resupply the International Space Station.

The aerospace company will continue trying for the landing; if successful, the reusable rocket can dramatically reduce launch costs.

Musk tweeted SpaceX will attempt another soft landing in February.

"Next rocket landing on drone ship in 2 to 3 weeks w way more hydraulic fluid. At least it shd explode for a diff reason," he wrote on Friday.

In previous tests, the Falcon 9 would relight its engines to slow its descent back to Earth, where it simply hovered over the water before being lost without a platform to land on. Saturday's test was the first use of a drone ship for the landing.

The company had said a successful landing on this first test would be immensely difficult, not least because the landing ship is a moving target less than 100 meters wide. Despite the hard landing, the rocket hit its target -- an encouraging sign.


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Aerojet Rocketdyne has successfully completed the first in a series of hot-fire tests on the RS-25 rocket engine, which will help power NASA's new Space Launch System (SLS) and carry humans farther into space than ever before. The test, conducted in the A-1 facility at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, demonstrated the ability of the engine's new computer to control the engine - ... read more


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