SpaceX Falcon 9 Reusable Rocket: Smooth Launch, Rough Landing

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has successfully launched its fifth Dragon cargo ship for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Saturday early morning, but a succeeding attempt to land the rocket back on Earth in an experiment to recycle rockets didn't go as smoothly.

Following a four-day delay caused by actuator drift in the upper stage in the Falcon 9, SpaceX launched the rocket into space at 4:47 a.m. Eastern Time from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex. The Dragon capsule that carries more than 2,270 kilograms of food, scientific equipment and supplies for the International Space Station (ISS) floating 418 kilometers above the Earth is on its way. The cargo ship is expected to arrive early on Monday, where astronauts at the ISS will take hold of the capsule using the station's robotic arm.

"It was an absolutely picture-perfect, flawless launch at 4:47 a.m. this morning," says NASA news chief at the Kennedy Space Center Michael Curie. "An on-time liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon capsule and now all the critical experiments and payload that we need at the station is on its way."

Part of the scientific experiment hardware is the Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS), an instrument that is used to measure the distribution of clouds and the composition of dust, smoke, haze and other pollutants in the Earth's atmosphere. CATS could help in providing a better understand of climate change and its effect, says NASA.

However, it wasn't all smooth sailing for the Falcon 9. While the liftoff's main objective is to send the supplies to the space station, a mission that is made even more critical following the explosion of Orbital Sciences Corporation's Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus cargo craft that was supposed to send supplies to the ISS in October, SpaceX had a secondary goal in mind.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk believes by being able to reuse rockets in the same way as airlines reuse airplanes, the space exploration industry could save millions of dollars in each takeoff.

The fifth Dragon cargo mission marks the first time SpaceX attempted to land a rocket on an "autonomous spaceport drone ship" in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean some 200 miles off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida and take it back to shore. SpaceX had been successful landing rockets in the water two times previously, but for this experiment, the Falcon 9's first stage booster was equipped with four hypersonic stabilizing grid fins and landing legs.

The rocket successfully hit its target, but Musk says it crash landed into the 300 x 170 foot landing area after coming from an altitude of 150 miles.

Prior to liftoff, SpaceX emphasized that the landing was a "bonus experiment" and predicted low chances of success because of the experiment's unprecedented nature.

"It's something no one else has tried before," says a SpaceX official. "We think it has a 50 percent chance of success."