Elon Musk's SpaceX Rocket Crashes During Landing After successfully launching two satellites, the Falcon 9 crashed while attempting to land on a barge.
By Dan Bova
Minutes after successfully launching two satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Falcon 9 rocket crashed while attempting to land on an ocean barge on Wednesday. Taking to Twitter, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported the chain of events:
Ascent phase & satellites look good, but booster rocket had a RUD on droneship
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2016
Looks like thrust was low on 1 of 3 landing engines. High g landings v sensitive to all engines operating at max.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2016
RUD = Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly :)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2016
Upgrades underway to enable rocket to compensate for a thrust shortfall on one of the three landing engines. Probably get there end of year.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2016
Landing video will be posted when we gain access to cameras on the droneship later today. Maybe hardest impact to date. Droneship still ok.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2016
Entrepreneur will post the video as soon as it is made available. We just hope those drone pilots were wearing their seatbelts. Above is a video of the rocket's successful launch.
