The Wall Street Journal: SpaceX stumbles in test to show reusable rocket technology advances

Entrepreneur Elon Musks space company executed a flawless, predawn launch of an unmanned cargo capsule headed for the international space station, but it botched Saturdays bid to maneuver a used rocket booster to gently touch down on a floating platform.

After a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Floridas Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and placed the Dragon spacecraft into orbit, Musk, Space Exploration Technology Corp.s chairman and chief executive, tweeted that the returning first stage landed hard and some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced.

Musk also said no cigar this time, but in a separate tweet predicted the unsuccessful effort to land vertically on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean roughly 200 miles off the Florida coast bodes well for the future.

The launch was closely watched by industry and space aficionados because developing a reusable rocket has been a long-standing goal of the global aerospace community. The latest effort by closely-held SpaceX, as the company is known, was the most ambitious experiment so far to show progress toward a commercially viable solution.

In typical rocket launches, parts of the booster burn up during re-entry or come back too damaged to be reused. SpaceX in the past managed to return a first-stage booster intact, but it toppled over and was damaged after touching down.

This time, SpaceX engineers and executives had hoped to demonstrate that the company had improved guidance, propulsion and other technologies to avoid past stumbles. It wasnt immediately clear how hard the returning booster smacked down, though in still another tweet Musk said sea conditions were dark and foggy, and the company didnt get a good video of the impact.

Before Saturdays launch, Musk pegged chances of success only around 50%.

The ability to inspect, refurbish and then launch the same boosterinstead of allowing it to plummet back toward earth in an uncontrolled fashioncould be a financial game-changer for satellite operators and launch providers alike. So far, no company or government has successfully shown it can be done.

Saturdays mission was the fifth time SpaceXs Falcon 9 blasted the companys unmanned Dragon capsule into low-Earth orbit to officially deliver cargo to the international scientific laboratory. If all goes to plan, the capsule and the roughly 5,000 pounds of food, experiments and equipment it is carrying are slated to reach the station on Monday.

An expanded version of this report is available at WSJ.com

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The Wall Street Journal: SpaceX stumbles in test to show reusable rocket technology advances