Soft landing attempt of SpaceX rocket fails

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket Saturday morning with a capsule of supplies and equipment for the International Space Station but failed in its attempt to bring the used rocket back down in one piece.

The spacecraft’s Dragon capsule reached orbit on its way to a Monday rendezvous with the station. It was the private company’s 14th consecutive flawless launch of the Falcon 9 rocket.

This time, however, SpaceX tried something new: an effort to control the booster’s return and land it gently on an ocean barge, a step toward the company’s goal of making its rockets reusable and launches much cheaper.

The difficult maneuver didn’t entirely work.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a hard landing broke the rocket into pieces. He later wrote that the rocket ran out of hydraulic fluid used to control the descent and landing apparatus.

Even so, all went well with the day’s primary mission of carrying needed cargo toward the space station.

Less than three minutes after Saturday’s launch, the first stage dropped off while the Dragon and the rocket’s second stage continued on at 10 times the speed of sound.

At that point, SpaceX re-ignited the first stage’s engines to direct a controlled descent, and bring it down targeting an unoccupied drone barge in the ocean. With a final engine burn, the company had wanted to land it softly. It hit the target but apparently not gently.

Musk wrote that the barge was fine, though some support equipment on board was not.

The operation was only a test. SpaceX said beforehand that it had about a 50 percent chance of succeeding.