Rocketcam Video of the SpaceX Falcon Booster Splashing Down in the Atlantic

The private company SpaceX has been making amazing strides in making it easier and cheaper to access space. Besides three missions to resupply the space station under its belt, it’s also looking for ways to reuse the first stage booster of the Falcon 9 rocket.

Engineers there have been testing hardware and software to do a soft vertical landing of the booster after it’s used to loft a payload into orbit. Their last vertical take off and landing test earlier this year was a success, reaching a height of a kilometer before safely touching back down.

They did a flight test of this in April, but the video was unfortunately corrupted. But a second attempt, during a launch on July 14, 2014, went better. The mission was to put a collection of global communication satellites in orbit, but there was also a test of the soft landing system as well. The test went pretty much according to plan, although the impact of the booster into the ocean damaged the hull. They’ve released a pretty cool video of the test:

The re-entry engine burn, landing burn, landing leg deployment, and soft landing went well, and the booster even tipped over into its “water saving state” correctly. Even if the hull ruptured, they are saying they got enough information to move forward on this technology to make it work.

Another such test will happen in a launch planned for September (flight 13 for the F9), but it’s expected to have “a low probability of success” since they’re still working on the tech. However, the next two flights after that will be attempts to land the booster on land. If that works, it’ll be nothing short of spectacular, and the video will be very, very cool. Stay Tuned.

Tip o’ the nose cone to my pal Alan Boyle.