At Last Sea-weet Success: SpaceX Sticks the Landing

Finally.. A Sea Hawk

The space age just got another red letter date added to its calendar.

In what may go down as a comeback for the ages, literally, SpaceX rebounded from last year’s loss of the CRS-7 mission on June 28th, 2014 with a flawless liftoff of the CRS-8 Dragon capsule, and more importantly in the long run, a successful landing of the Falcon 9 first stage aboard a drone ship standing off Florida’s Atlantic coast.

The landing, captured by an aerial drone in stunningly clear video shot on a beautiful late afternoon, comes after multiple near misses, including one off the California coast in January which touched down successfully, but then collapsed due to a failure of the landing gear. That mission, the Jason-3 launch, was the last to employ a Falcon 9 V1.1, which was equipped with an older version of the landing gear. Next up came the March 4th SES-9 mission, which although utilizing an improved design on a Falcon 9 FT, fell short due to lack of enough propellant on a high-risk, high-speed entry off the Bahamas.

Today’s outcome was vastly different however, underscoring a fundamental truth of rocketry. Even though the Falcon 9 was lofting its most heavily loaded Dragon capsule to date, there was just enough propellant to secure what only a few minutes before was a ridiculously improbable landing aboard a tiny spot in an enormous ocean.

Now it is a proven capability. Pending available propellant, and at least modestly acceptable weather at sea, (never a sure thing) SpaceX will be able to make good on its ambitions to recover the majority of Falcon 9 first stages it flings into the sky.

And that means the sky is no longer the limit.

The hosted webcast. Landing begins at 35:57