SpaceEx Landing Good But No Cigar Yet

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This time-lapse image from SpaceX shows the upright launch and landing of the company's Falcon 9 rocket on December 21, 2015 at Cape Canaveral in Florida -- a historic first in the push to make rockets as reusable as airplanes

A day after SpaceX pulled off an upright landing of its powerful Falcon 9 rocket, the head of France's space agency called it a "technological feat" but warned of more work ahead.

CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall told AFP why cost and technology show reusable launchers are not yet a game-changer.

What do you think of SpaceX's successful landing?

"What they did yesterday is clearly a technological feat; everyone is unanimous on that point.

"That said, there are two things to keep in mind. The first is that they made just the first step by recovering (the rocket) but not reusing it yet. The launcher worked once, it returned and landed perfectly.

"Let's see first if it's possible to use it again and whether a lot of a work will need to be done to make it flight-ready.

"We should not forget that reusable launchers already exist, with space shuttles being one example. But when they have to be re-readied for flight the costs have been significant."

What are the benefits over classic rockets?

"The gap is wide between a perfect world where we repeatedly re-use a launcher as-is and the real world in which we have to repair it and (the rocket) only works once or twice.

"We are hopeful that considerable gains will be made, but we have not seen them yet. The technological success of last night raises many questions and for the moment we don't have any of the responses."

Do reusable launchers mark a paradigm change?

"SpaceX and Blue Origin, which also successfully recovered a launcher several days ago, have placed a bet on re-use with programmes designed for it from the very beginning.

"It is a different path than the one being considered everywhere else. As to whether this will change the paradigm, it is too soon to say.

"We'll see if we manage to have the system that (SpaceX CEO) Elon Musk is talking about -- with launchers that come and go and that make another trip shortly after their last flight -- or whether we'll have something that is more delicate.

"In any case, it is a technological feat and things can change, but they have not yet."

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SpaceX fails to stick ocean landing after satellite launch

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Los Angeles (AFP) - SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket broke apart Sunday as it tried to land on a floating platform in the Pacific, marking the fourth such failure in the company's bid to recycle rockets.

However, the primary mission of the launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California went as planned, propelling into orbit a $180 million US-French satellite to study sea level rise.

"First stage on target at droneship but looks like hard landing; broke landing leg," the California-based company said on Twitter.

SpaceX said it lost contact with its live video link of the floating barge, or droneship, before the rocket came in for a landing, so no images were immediately available.

A commentator on SpaceX's live webcast said video would be made available in the coming hours.

"Unfortunately we are not standing upright on the drone ship at the moment but the good news here is that the primary mission is still on track," said the commentator, referring to the launch of the US-French oceans satellite, Jason-3.

SpaceX is trying to land its rocket back on Earth so it can re-use the parts in the future, as the company headed by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk tries to make spaceflight cheaper and more sustainable than before.

SpaceX succeeded in landing its Falcon 9 first stage -- the long towering portion of the rocket -- on solid ground at Cape Canaveral, Florida in December.

Even though an ocean landing is more difficult, SpaceX says it needs to perfect the technique so it can bring back its rockets in all kinds of situations.

Currently, expensive rocket components are jettisoned into the ocean after launch, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars.

Competitor Blue Origin, headed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, succeeded in landing a suborbital rocket in November.

However, no other company has attempted the ocean landing that SpaceX is trying to achieve.

- Oceans satellite -

The Jason-3 satellite, made by France and the United States, blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, at 10:42 am (1842 GMT).

It aims to offer a more precise look at how global warming and sea level rise affect wind speeds and currents as close as one kilometer (0.6 miles) from shore, whereas past satellites were limited to about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the coast.

The technology will monitor global sea surface heights, tropical cyclones and help support seasonal and coastal forecasts.

During a five-year mission, its data will also be used to aid fisheries management and research into human impacts on the world's oceans.

The satellite is the fruit of a four-way partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US space agency NASA, the French space agency CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

SpaceX fails to stick ocean landing after satellite launch

Good, anything that makes it easier to put spy and military satellites in space is guaranteed to be used for evil purposes by the American Government and its corporate mastes, hope it's a long time before it works.