Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) on Saturday successfully launched its fifth Cargo Resupply Services (CRS-5) mission for NASA, but came up short successfully landing its Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage on a floating platform.
Company founder and CEO Elon Musk said Saturday on Twitter the first stage made it to the drone spaceport ship, but “landed hard.” Musk said the ship was “fine” following the landing attempt, but that some support equipment needed to be replaced. SpaceX spokesman John Taylor on Monday declined to provide further specifics.
The attempted landing of the Falcon 9 first stage was notable as it was the company’s first shot at landing the stage on a surface other than water. Officially known as an autonomous spaceport drone ship, the floating platform is repurposed from deep sea oil rigs. SpaceX’s long-term goal is reusing rockets to help drive down the cost of space launch.
“Close, but no cigar this time,” Musk said on Twitter. “Bodes well for the future, though.”
Saturday’s launch was also unique as SpaceX added four hypersonic grid fins placed in an “x-wing” configuration around the Falcon 9 to help guide its first stage to the autonomous spaceport drone ship. Musk said the grid fins worked “extremely well” from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing. SpaceX’s next flight, Musk said, already had 50 percent more hydraulic fluid, so he felt it should have plenty of margin for a landing attempt next month.
The hypersonic grid fins stowed on ascent and deployed on reentry to control the first stage’s lift vector. Each fin was designed to move independently for roll, pitch and yaw, and combined with engine gimbaling, was to allow for precision landing (Defense Daily, Jan. 6). Overall, despite the “hard landing,” Musk said CRS-5 made “huge strides” toward reusability.
CRS-5, which is a mission to deliver food and cargo to ISS, successfully launched at 4:47 a.m. EST Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. SpaceX said Monday on Twitter its Dragon space capsule successfully berthed with the International Space Station (ISS), where it will remain for the next four weeks. NASA said Saturday Dragon is scheduled to spend about a month attached to ISS before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California, Mexico.
CRS-5 is the first CRS mission since Orbital Sciences’ [ORB] Antares launch vehicle failed on a launch pad Oct. 28 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on the eastern shore of Virginia. Orbital is contracting with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to provide a CRS mission in the fourth quarter of 2015 with an option for a second launch in 2016, if necessary, to fulfill its duties (Defense Daily, Dec. 9). ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA].