Boat Fitted With A Large Net Attempted ... Unsuccessfully ... To Catch The Payload Fairing

It appears boosters are not the only thing SpaceX hopes to recycle from its launch program. Now, the company is attempting to recapture parts of the upper stage as well.

CNet reports that SpaceX sent a specially-designed ship out into the Pacific fitted with what can best be described as a "giant catchers mitt" with which it hoped to catch the payload fairing falling to Earth after the successful launch of a Spanish Earth-imaging satellite as well as two experimental SpaceX broadband microsatellites.

The Tugboat, named Mr. Steven, headed to the area where the fairings were supposed to return to Earth on Thursday. How did the crew know where to go? After a long supersonic all from space, GPS-connected parasails attempted to guide the component to a specific spot on the ocean where Mr. Steven would be waiting.

But as Agent Maxwell Smart (for those of you old enough to get the reference) would have said, they "missed it by THAT much."

On Twitter, Musk said the fairing missed the net deployed on Mr. Steven by only a few hundred meters. It did, however, come down in the water in one piece. "Should be able catch it with slightly bigger chutes to slow down descent," he said in a Tweet.

(Images provided by SpaceX)

FMI: Original report