Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship

Falcon 9 clears static fire test before launch this week

February 22, 2016 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s launch team in Cape Canaveral fueled a Falcon 9 rocket with super-chilled liquid propellants and briefly fired the first stage’s nine Merlin engines Monday in a customary preflight test ahead of Wednesday’s scheduled liftoff of a commercial television broadcasting satellite for the Asia-Pacific.

Offshore barge landing targeted after next Falcon 9 launch

January 11, 2016 Stephen Clark

Nearly a month after nailing a landing a rocket landing at Cape Canaveral, SpaceX plans to steer the next flight of a Falcon 9 booster toward a recovery vessel in the Pacific Ocean after a Jan. 17 blastoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

SpaceX to forgo booster recovery on Wednesday’s launch

February 11, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX says it is giving up on landing the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after Wednesday’s launch of a NOAA space weather observatory due to rough seas in the booster recovery zone off Florida’s East Coast.

New challenges await SpaceX’s next rocket landing attempt

February 7, 2015 Stephen Clark

A rocket recovery team positioned off Florida’s East Coast is standing by for liftoff Sunday of a Falcon 9 launcher with a space weather satellite, but the demanding trajectory of the flight adds more unknowns to the company’s dicey endeavor to land the booster on a ship at sea.

SpaceX shares dramatic video of Falcon 9’s crash landing

January 16, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk has shared images of the Falcon 9 booster’s crash landing on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean after the rocket’s successful Jan. 10 liftoff with supplies for the International Space Station.

Photos: SpaceX’s rocket landing platform back in port

January 11, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s ocean-going rocket landing pad — dubbed the autonomous spaceport drone ship — is back in port after a Falcon 9 rocket booster crashed on the platform during an experimental flyback maneuver following Saturday’s successful liftoff with supplies for the International Space Station.

Despite botched landing, a lot went right with SpaceX’s booster flyback

January 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster accomplished a delicate maneuver after a glowing predawn launch from Cape Canaveral on Saturday, autonomously navigating its away to a modified barge the size of a football field hidden in darkness beneath a blanket of low clouds, before it crashed and broke apart.

Dragon successfully launched, rocket recovery demo crash lands

January 10, 2015 Stephen Clark

A commercial Dragon spaceship soared into orbit from Cape Canaveral on Saturday in pursuit of the International Space Station, but the automated craft’s Falcon 9 booster crash landed after flying back to Earth in a daring test of futuristic reusable rocket technologies.

Ships deployed into the Atlantic for experimental rocket landing

January 5, 2015 Stephen Clark

A barge and command ship chartered by SpaceX are stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida’s East Coast in a bid to recover a used-up Falcon 9 rocket stage Tuesday in a long-theorized — but never tried — maneuver that could lay the groundwork for a big advance in space technology.

Rocket landing experiment on tap after SpaceX cargo launch

December 17, 2014 Stephen Clark

SpaceX hopes to take a giant leap forward in rocket technology a few minutes after Friday’s scheduled launch of a Falcon 9 booster taking up 2.5 tons of critical supplies and experiments to the International Space Station.