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Some 2.5 tons of freight are speeding toward the International Space Station following Saturday morning's successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket topped with the company's Dragon cargo capsule.

The rocket launched at4:47 a.m.Eastern Standard Time from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, following an aborted launch attempt Jan. 6. That launch was scrubbed less than two minutes before lift-off after launch controllers reported that a key component in the steering mechanism for the rocket's second stage wasn't working properly.

This morning's launch went flawlessly, delivering the capsule to orbit some 17 minutes after launch. It's the companys fifth formal cargo flight to the station under a $1.6 billion agreement with NASA to resupply the space station.

Although the mission's primary goal is to deliver the goods to the station, the launch also represented Space Exploration Technology Corporation's first try at returning a first-stage booster safely back to Earth. In this case, Earth was represented by a football-field-size, ocean-going platform dubbed the autonomous spaceport drone ship.

Three times before, Falcon 9 boosters had soft-landed into the ocean during initial tests of the booster-return system. This time, with landing legs added, the stage was to have set down on the platform.

Instead, tweeted SpaceX CEO and chief technology officer Elon Musk, "Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho."

Even so, landing with a resounding thud could be considered a partial success. The SpaceX team delivered the first stage to the platform. In past tests, from about 150 miles up, the first stages splashed down within about six miles of the projected landing spot. Engineers added special fins to the first stage of the Falcon 9 used Saturday to help steer it to a more-accurate landing. The goal was to land with an accuracy of about 30 feet. A hard landing on the platform suggests that the fin system worked.

The company had another, crewed vessel nearby, but it was too dark and foggy to get decent video of the landing attempt. Still, engineers have a wealth of telemetry the first stage sent throughout its descent they can analyze for clues as to what changes need to be made to improve chances for success on future launches.

SpaceX is trying to perfect the system so that it can use a first stage for multiple launches. The goal is to drive down launch costs in hopes of expanding access to space for a wider variety of potential users.

The Falcon 9, as well as the more-powerful Falcon Heavy slated for its initial demonstration flight later this year, are unlikely to sport reusable seconds stages, Mr. Musk acknowledged in a question-and-answer session on reddit.com earlier this week.

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SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets toward International Space Station

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

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

An unmanned Space Exploration Technologies mission blasted off on Saturday carrying cargo for the International Space Station, but efforts to reland the rocket on a sea platform failed, the firm said.

"Rocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time," Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, as the company is called, said on Twitter.

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"Bodes well for the future," he added.

The Dragon cargo capsule itself was successfully launched into space and is expected to dock with the space station on Monday.

Seeking to cut the cost of space launches, SpaceX hoped to bring the rocket back to Earth, aiming to land it on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean some 200 miles (322 km) off Jacksonville, Fla., north of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site.

A ship stationed near the platform tried to capture the touchdown on video, but it was too dark and foggy, Musk said.

Engineers will look to work out what went wrong by studying data relayed during the descent, as well as pieces of the rocket itself, he added.

"Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced," said Musk, who prior to the launch had put the odds of a successful touchdown on the first attempt at just 50 percent.

The primary purpose of Saturday's mission was to deliver cargo to the space station, a $100-billion laboratory that flies about 260 miles (418 km) above Earth.

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'Close but no cigar': SpaceX reland fails