It turns out that for SpaceX, landing a rocket booster upright on a droneship in the ocean upright is the easy part. It’s getting it back to land that’s tricky.
It turns out that for SpaceX, landing a rocket booster upright on a droneship in the ocean is the easy part. It’s getting it back to land that’s tricky.
SpaceX has reported the loss of a first-stage Falcon 9 booster that had flown a record 19 times for the company, including a historic mission that launched the company’s first crew to the International Space Station.
Booster 1058 completed what turned out to be its final flight on Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and, as usual, the 42.1.-meter-tall booster landed safely on a droneship waiting in the Atlantic Ocean.
But while sailing back to base, extreme weather conditions caused the booster to topple over, with a chunk of it later falling into the sea.
