By happenstance, we were up late last night, and happened to click on the live feed of the Space-X Falcon 9 launch live feed at almost exactly T-1 minute. The launch was nominal, and I watched all the way to solar panel deployment. In about two days, the Dragon capsule will rendezvous with the International Space Station, and deliver its cargo. So far, so good.
The radical part of the Falcon 9 program is the attempt to recover the first stage of the rocket. Rather than simply falling away as most rockets do, the Falcon 9 is intended to make a maneuver to a reentry to a planned point, use its motor to slow down, deploy landing legs, and land on a barge. Recovering the stage means the expensive part of the launch, the actual rocket motors, can be reused, greatly decreasing the cost of launching a pound of payload to orbit.
Graphic by Jon Ross via NBC News.
Space-X had tried the maneuver portion of the reentry on previous launches. This morning was the first attempt to actually land the rocket. An unmanned barge serving as a landing platform was deployed off the Atlantic coast. Unfortunately, the rocket landed hard per Space-X head honcho Elon Musk, and recovery failed.
Apparently, the stage ran out of hydraulic fluid just prior to touchdown, causing a loss of control.
So about 99% of the mission went well. I think that’s a pretty good record, considering the complexity of what they’re attempting.
XBradTC 
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