Third Booster Lost While Attempting Landing On Platform At Sea

Different ocean ... same result. SpaceX successfully launched the Jason 3 ocean-monitoring satellite to orbit on Sunday, but the company's third attempt to land a booster on a floating platform resulted in the loss of the booster.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk posted a video of the landing on Instagram. It shows the booster touching down on the platform as intended, but then tipping over and exploding. "Falcon lands on droneship, but the lockout collet doesn't latch on one the four legs, causing it to tip over post landing. Root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff," Musk posted with the video.

"Well, at least the pieces were bigger this time! Won't be last RUD, but am optimistic about upcoming ship landing," Musk Tweeted after the landing attempt."

"RUD" is Musk's shorthand for "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly"

"Definitely harder to land on a ship. Similar to an aircraft carrier vs land: much smaller target area, that's also translating & rotating," he Tweeted a few minutes later.

SpaceX has, of course, had one success recovering a booster following a satellite launch. That rocket landed back at Cape Canaveral after boosting 11 satellites into orbit for Orbcomm in December.

Geekwire reports that Musk was unable to get a permit to recover the booster back on land in California prior to Sunday night's launch, but the company is working to obtain approval for "Landing Zone 2" on the West Coast. However, Musk said that even if the Falcon 9 had come back to dry land, the result would have "probably" been the same.

(Images from Musk Twitter feed)

FMI: www.spacex.com