An unmanned SpaceX Falcon rocket exploded on landing after successfully delivering an ocean monitoring satellite to orbit. The cause of the problem was that one of the rocket’s legs collapsed as it tried to land on a floating ocean barge. The rocket company had managed a historic first controlled return of an orbital stage last month. This footage of the landing was posted online by SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk.

Despite the explosive result, this is the closest the company has come to successfully landing a booster at sea. The rocket’s main mission, to launch the Jason-3 ocean monitoring satellite, was a resounding success. In further good news for the company, analysis of the Falcon 9 from the 21 December landing provides strong evidence for the future reusability of SpaceX’s rockets.

 About SpaceX 

• Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company with its headquarters in Hawthorne, California, USA.
• It was founded in 2002 by formerPayPal entrepreneur and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk with the goal of creating the technologies to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars.
• It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both of which were designed from conception to eventually become reusable, and the Dragon spacecraft which is flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with cargo.