Spacex successfully launched the DSCOVR satellite and sent it into a parking orbit. The satellite was successfully deployed.
Waves were to high for the drone ship, but the first stage successfully soft landed vertically into the ocean 10 meters from its target.
Ultimately, DSCOVR will be positioned at the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point, 1,500,000 kilometers (930,000 mi) from Earth, more than four times farther than the Moon. SpaceX delivered DSCOVR to a parking orbit just under 200km, and the satellite will reach its final orbit 110 days after launch.
While extreme weather prevented SpaceX from attempting to recover the first stage, data shows the first stage successfully soft landed in the Atlantic Ocean within 10 meters of its target. The vehicle was nicely vertical and the data captured during this test suggests a high probability of being able to land the stage on the drone ship in better weather.
Landing on a stormy sea pic.twitter.com/7EY25g3IU5— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 12, 2015
Rocket soft landed in the ocean within 10m of target & nicely vertical! High probability of good droneship landing in non-stormy weather.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2015
Planning a significant upgrade of the droneship for future missions to handle literally anything. Maybe give it a Merlin for good measure :)— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2015
Mega storm preventing droneship from remaining on station, so rocket will try to land on water. Survival probability <1%.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2015
A NOAA buoy near the suspected @SpaceX ASDS location has been reporting wave heights > 25 feet since Tue. evening. pic.twitter.com/FpI74Za8FQ— TWC Space Weather (@twcspacewx) February 11, 2015
SOURCES – Elon Musk Twitter, Spacex
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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