But Attempt To Land Booster At Sea Was Not Successful

SpaceX on Wednesday was able to successfully boost two satellites into geostationary transfer orbits.

The two payloads were the EUTELSAT 117 West B satellite, and the ABS-2A satellite for Bermuda-based Asia Broadcast Satellite Inc. The satellites were ferried into space by a Falcon 9 rocket that took off from SpaceX’s Space Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral at 10.29 ET (14.29 UTC).

The landing attempt on the autonomous barge in the Atlantic Ocean, however, ended in what SpaceX Founder Elon Musk calls a "RUD" ... a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly of the booster.

Or in normal terms, it crashed on the barge.

EUTELSAT 117 West B was parked in a supersynchronous orbit after a 30-minute flight. The first telemetry from the new satellite has been confirmed and processed at Boeing’s Mission Control Center in El Segundo, California.

The ABS-2A satellite is the second of the pair of all-electric propulsion satellites, manufactured by Boeing Satellite Systems International.  It is equipped with an all Ku-band payload of 48 high performance transponders connecting Africa, MENA, Russia, South Asia and South East Asia regions.  ABS-2A will be co-located with ABS-2 and will deliver enhanced broadcast and data services from 75°E.

EUTELSAT 117 West B also features a payload for Raytheon to enable the U.S. FAA to increase GPS signal accuracy from 10 metres to 1-2 metres, thereby enhancing aviation safety for users in Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the continental United States including Alaska. The WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) payload on EUTELSAT 117 West B is the first to be included on an all-electric satellite.

As for the booster, CNN reports that Musk posted on Twitter that while the booster had made "maybe (the) hardest impact to date," the droneship landing pad was "still OK."

It is not yet clear why the landing attempt failed. SpaceX has successfully recovered four Falcon 9 boosters, three on the Droneship barge and one back at a landing facility at Cape Canaveral.

(Images provided by SpaceX)

FMI: www.spacex.com