Fourth attempt to land Falcon 9 rocket on offshore platform fails

SpaceX has made another attempt to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a drone ship at sea. It went wrong again on this fourth attempt, although the company had indicated in advance that it did not expect any success. The launch of the rocket was delayed several times.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Friday night from Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida. Then the first part of the rocket was disengaged to fall back to Earth. According to Musk, the Falcon 9 is then hard come down on the autonomous drone ship that serves as a land platform.

As a result, this attempt to land a rocket on a sea platform has also failed, after three previous attempts had been unsuccessful. Incidentally, this result was in line with expectations: SpaceX previously indicated that the landing would probably fail, because a lot of fuel was needed due to the heavy load that had to be shot up, so that little was left for the landing. Musk states that another attempt will be made in the future where a higher chance of success is expected.

With the launch, SpaceX wanted to put satellites into orbit as part of the so-called SES-9 mission. The client wants to use these satellites to be able to offer services to customers in Asia. Initially, the launch was supposed to take place last month, but SpaceX faced several problems that forced the launch to be canceled a number of times. However, on Friday night, conditions proved favorable enough for the launch to go ahead. For now, it appears that the satellites have been launched successfully.

Although previous attempts by SpaceX to land its Falcon 9 rocket on the drone ship have failed, a land landing attempt has succeeded. According to CEO Elon Musk, the rocket that successfully landed upright can be used again for a launch. However, SpaceX chooses not to; this Falcon 9 will probably get a place in a museum.