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SCIENCEWednesday 20 January 2016
Support leg breaks as SpaceX rocket lands on ocean barge
C. WEBER The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen at Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4 how long it takes the signal
JOHN ANTCZAK East with the Jason-3 spacecraft onboard in California. After successfully delivering an ocean- to return indicates sea lev-
Associated Press monitoring satellite into orbit, the Space X rocket made a hard landing on a floating barge in the el height, which rises or falls
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Af- roiling Pacific, breaking a support leg and toppling over. depending on the temper-
ter successfully delivering ature of the water.
a U.S.-European ocean- (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP) The data collected can
monitoring satellite into detect the weather-alter-
orbit, a Space X rocket waited for the landing at- Meanwhile NASA said Ja- Falcon 9 rocket. However, ing El Nino condition and
made a hard landing on a tempt. son-3 was “ready for sci- the launch was postponed its opposite, La Nina, and
floating barge in the roiling SpaceX founder Elon Musk ence operations” after it after a different Falcon are most familiar to the
Pacific, breaking a support said on Twitter that the reached orbit and had its 9 rocket failed during a public in images of the Pa-
leg and toppling over. rocket’s speed at touch- solar arrays deployed. The supply mission to the In- cific Ocean that use col-
SpaceX announcers said down was OK, “but a leg satellite’s mission is to con- ternational Space Station ors to illustrate variations
the first stage of the Fal- lockout didn’t latch, so it tinue an unbroken record in June. After correcting in heat. Other pragmatic
con 9 was not upright after tipped over after landing.” of more than two decades the problem, a successful uses include measuring
reaching the 300-by-170 Two previous attempts to of sea level measurements launch last month restored global sea level rise, and
foot landing pad in chop- land a rocket on a barge in from orbit. As the current El Falcon 9s to flight status. forecasting the strength
py seas about 200 miles the Atlantic failed, but last Nino in the eastern Pacific Like its predecessors, Ja- of hurricanes, other severe
west of San Diego on Sun- month SpaceX succeeded has strengthened, Jason-3 son-3 is equipped with ra- weather and ocean con-
day. in returning a rocket to a had been stuck on the dar altimeter to bounce ditions for the shipping in-
The rocket launched as vertical landing at Cape ground. microwave energy off the dustry and in response to
planned at 10:42 a.m. from Canaveral, Florida, after Jason-3’s launch was origi- ocean and a GPS system oil spills.
Vandenberg Air Force putting a cluster of satellites nally scheduled for August to identify the satellite’s “Jason allows us to get the
Base, northwest of Los An- into orbit. 2015 aboard a SpaceX precise location. Timing of big picture in terms of sea-
geles, streaking through level change in the years
a cloud-filled sky before to come,” said Laury Miller,
eventually sending its sec- Jason-3 program scientist.
ond stage and a Jason-3 Jason-3 is a project of the
satellite into orbit. National Oceanic and At-
The failed landing was a mospheric Administration,
setback for the Hawthorne, NASA, the French space
California, company’s plan agency Centre National
to reduce launch costs d’Etudes Spatiales, and
by reusing rockets rather the European Organiza-
than having them fall into tion for the Exploitation of
the ocean. Meteorologists Meteorological Satellites. It
predicted swells of 10- to was built by Thales Alenia
13-feet where the barge of France.q
