#f9026

Tracking camera footage of F9-026 landing on the droneship last Wednesday. 

After a successful launch and stage separation, the first stage of Falcon 9 attempted an experimental landing on Of Course I Still Love You 386 miles downrange in the Atlantic ocean.  Because the Eutelsat 117W B and ABS 2A satellites were being deployed to Geostationary Transfer Orbit, Falcon 9 had less fuel to perform its three landing burns. SpaceX does not expect every GTO mission to be successful, even though the previous two of JCSAT-14 and Thaicom-8 were.

Details released by Elon Musk a few hours after launch revealed that the booster ran out of Liquid Oxygen shortly above the droneship’s surface. Out of fuel, all three landing engines shut down just a few feet above the deck, causing the rocket to land hard on its surface. As seen in the last gif, the booster then began to topple over. Musk also stated that “the landing was not as fast as we thought, but still hard enough to destroy primary airframe and accordion the engines.” F9-026 is the first Falcon 9 to not survive landing since SES-9 in early March. At the beginning of 2016, Musk stated that he expects a 70% success rating for landings in 2016. Footage above taken from one of the droneship’s support vessels, with stabilized footage courtesy of ZLSA Design.

Roaring into the late morning sky, the Eutelsat/ABS mission launches at 10:29am EDT, Tuesday, June 15, 2016.

The Falcon 9′s first stage did not survive landing on Of Course I Still Love You eight and a half minutes later, marking the company’s first unsuccessful landing since SES-9 in March.

The Falcon 9 rocket for the ABS/Eutelsat 2 mission arrived at Cape Canaveral Friday, May 27. While I was driving off base following the Thaicom 8 launch, I saw the wrapped booster sitting in the parking lot of SpaceX’s hanger in the main part of the base. With a projected launch date of June 16, the date of the booster’s arrival gives good insite to the Falcon 9′s launch operations flow here at the Cape.