Last flight of the Titan

When the first Delta 2 rocket took off on Valentine’s Day 1989, ideas like navigating by smartphone and driving robots on Mars were science fiction. More than 150 launches over the last 30 years helped change all that.

One of four landing legs mounted to the base of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster failed to engage on the rocket’s final descent to a barge in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, leaving wreckage scattered on the football field-sized deck of the landing ship after an otherwise successful launch with an ocean research satellite.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket unleashed two million pounds of thrust at 7:19 p.m. PST (10:19 p.m. EST) on Dec. 12 to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on the NROL-35 mission. See photos of the launch from the press viewing site.