CAPE CANAVERAL, FL — SpaceX successfully launched a Dragon spacecraft Wednesday, sending thousands of pounds of cargo to the International Space Station. But the Falcon 9 rocket didn’t fall back to Earth as planned, splashing into the Pacific Ocean rather than at a pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
“Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea,” tweeted SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. “Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched.”
The launch was broadcast live over the internet. You can watch a replay in its entirety here.
Spokesman John Insprucker confirmed in a live webcast that the first stage landed in the water.
“Now, the good news is we’ve got a lot of telemetry from it, so we’ll be able to understand what happened and work to improve reliability as we always do here at SpaceX,” he said.
The second stage went into “great orbit,” he added.
The Dragon spacecraft is racing after the space station and will try to reach it over the next few days, according to Space.com. Wednesday’s launch was SpaceX’s 16th under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract. It was supposed to fly Tuesday, but was pushed back when rodent food meant for lab mice at the station was found to be moldy.
The launch came two days after a Falcon 9 rocket carried 64 small satellites into orbit from California. The rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base and landed on a drone ship minutes later in the Pacific Ocean. It was the first time the same Falcon 9 rocket had been used in three space missions, according to The New York Times.
Reusability has been one of SpaceX’s major goals.
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“SpaceX believes rocket reusability is the key breakthrough needed to reduce the cost of access to space and enable people to live on other planets,” the company said on its website.
The launch also comes on the heels of a NASA announcement last week that nine companies would compete against each other for contracts to haul small payloads to the moon. The Trump administration wants to use the moon as a test site for new technologies and strategies that could make it trips there more cost-effective.
“We are building a domestic American capability to get back and forth to the surface of the moon,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine.
The last time a U.S. astronauts successfully landed on the moon in 1972. Not a single U.S. spacecraft has successfully landed there since then.
According to SpaceX, the Falcon 9 is a two-stage rocket designed to transport satellites and the Dragon spacecraft into orbit. It has made numerous trips to space and returned cargo from the space station for NASA.
The Dragon spacecraft carries the cargo in its pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk. The rocket and spacecraft are designed to take people into space, with the capsule designed to take astronauts as well.
Photo credit:Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images