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SpaceX releases video of Falcon 9 landing attempt.
Earlier this morning, I posted an article on Elon Musk’s tweets to John Carmack showing images of the Falcon 9 attempting to land on the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship following the CRS-5 launch last week.
Those images appear to have been video stills from a camera on the barge, and taken from the above video. SpaceX posted this footage to their Vine account at 11:53 AM EST today.
You can see the booster approaching the barge at a 45 degree angle following the failure of the hypersonic grid fins. This failure was caused by not enough hydraulic fluid in the grid fin control system, which in turn powered the system down.
The engine section of the booster explodes upon impact with the ASDS’s surface, causing residual booster propellant to explode. The upper portion of the booster continues to fall, careening off the side of the ship and into the ocean.This is incredible footage of an extremely difficult maneuver. SpaceX will again attempt to land the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket following the January 29 launch of DSCOVR.
As Musk himself echoes in the Vine’s title: “Close, but no cigar. This time.”
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