Elon Musk has released a video of the Falcon 9's failed landing from earlier this week.
The rocket crashed during landing after it suffered what boss Elon Musk described as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" (RUD) – a technical way of saying things didn't go to plan.
The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 10.29AM on June 15 and successfully launched two satellites into orbit.
But when the rocket was due to land at sea, it shook the floating drone ship it was supposed to land on and caused the onboard camera to freeze. The last shots of the livestream showed the Falcon 9 surrounded by flames. During the live video webcast, a SpaceX employee said the rocket was "lost."
Posting an update on Twitter, Elon Musk said: "Ascent phase & satellites look good, but booster rocket had a RUD on droneship." He followed this up with: "Looks like thrust was low on 1 of 3 landing engines. High G landings [very] sensitive to all engines operating at max."
"Upgrades underway to enable rocket to compensate for a thrust shortfall on one of the three landing engines. Probably get there end of year," Musk concluded.
"Looks like early liquid oxygen depletion caused engine shutdown just above the deck," he later tweeeted.
The rocket was intended to launch into the air before landing on an autonomous robot drone ship called Of Course I Love You.
Earlier this year, SpaceX had more luck when it successfully landed a Falcon 9 on the same drone ship – the fourth successful landing for the rocket. It also launched a JCSAT-14, a commercial telecommunications satellite, to a geostationary transfer orbit.
The firm's first landing of the 23-storey rocket took place in December 2015, when, after delivering 11 communications satellites into orbit, it successfully touched down at Cape Canaveral.
It's also planning on launching a mission to Mars as soon as 2018, announcing that a Dragon spacecraft will be "sent to Mars as soon as 2018".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
