SpaceX launched and landed a rocket on Saturday, but the event did not go as well as planned.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted Saturday that the rocket landed too hard, but it was not clear exactly what happened, until now. This is an amazing vine that SpaceX just released of the attempted rocket landing, which leaves little to the imagination.
t's incredible to see the rocket fly in at a 45-degree angle and then explode upon impact. What's equally incredible is that the rocket actually made contact with the barge in the first place, steering itself from 50 miles above Earth's surface.
The fins are located toward the top of the rocket as shown in the image below, which is Jon Ross's impression of what the landing would have looked like if successful.
Although the rocket was blown to bits, the drone ship suffered minor damage, shown below to be mostly intact with minimal burn marks. SpaceX will try this stunt again using the same drone ship for their next launch scheduled for January 29.
