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2nd LD Writethru: SpaceX launches satellite, drone ship landing fails again

Xinhua, March 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. space firm SpaceX successfully sent Friday evening a European commercial communications satellite into space, but failed again in an attempt to softland the spent first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

About one hour after launch, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted: "Rocket landed hard on the droneship. Didn't expect this one to work ... but next flight has a good chance."

The failure was not a surprise as the California-based firm itself had little hope for the rocket recovery test, part of the company's efforts to produce a fully and rapidly reusable rocket.

SpaceX said a reusable rocket will dramatically reduce the cost of space transport. Traditionally, rockets are designed for a single use only, burning up or crashing into the ocean after liftoff.

The Falcon 9 rocket shot into the sky at 6:35 p.m. EST (2335 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the U.S. state of Florida, carrying a commercial communications satellite called SES-9, which will deliver television and high-speed broadband services to the Asia-Pacific region.

The rocket's first stage separated about 2.5 minutes after launch and then performed a series of engine burns for an experimental landing on the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.

SpaceX achieved one successful soft landing in December last year on a land-based pad at Cape Canaveral, but its three previous attempts to land the first stage on an ocean drone ship -- in January 2015, April 2015, and this January -- all failed.

This time, the SES-9 was headed for the so-called Geostationary Transfer Orbit, about 36,000 kilometers above Earth, which required the rocket to fly faster than usual.

This made it more difficult for a landing after stage separation. SpaceX said in a pre-launch statement that "a successful landing is not expected." Endi