Jacon 3 encapsulated inside the rocket´s payload fairing. - Photo credit:NASA

The Falcon 9 rocket emerged from its hangar at Space Launch Complex 4-East

Falcon-9 on launchpad. - Photo credit:NASA

Barge for landing Falcon-9

The Falcon 9 first stage descends to a soft landing on SpaceX´s drone ship in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday. The rocket tipped over moments later. Credit: SpaceX

• The rocket´s center engine, one of nine Merlin engines on the Falcon 9 first stage, fired to put on the brakes just as the vehicle approached the drone ship named "Just Read the Instructions" after a starship featured in science fiction writer Iain Banks´ novels.
• The rocket was right on course — just 4.3 feet (1.3 meters) off center, SpaceX said — but a collet on leg No. 3 failed to latch, and the landing gear crumpled as the booster settled on the ship´s deck.
• The failed landing makes SpaceX 0-for-3 when targeting touchdowns on the ocean-going barge, but Sunday´s try came closer to sticking the landing than earlier attempts.
  Engineers blamed the explosive crash landing of a Falcon 9 booster in January 2015 on insufficient hydraulic fluid for the rocket´s steering fins, and a first stage made a hard landing in April 2015 after a throttle valve on the landing engine became stuck.
  No such problems haunted the Falcon 9 rocket´s descent Sunday, and officials said the landing would have been successful without the broken leg.

Description:

• On the US West Coast, another Falcon 9 was launched on Jan 17, 2016 with the Jason-3 satellite. This was vehicle F9-019, the last version 1.1 core; it took off soutbound from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg AFB at 1842 UTC, entered a 175 x 1321 km x 66 deg transfer orbit at 1851 UTC, and circularized the orbit at apogee with spacecraft separation at 1938 UTC. The second stage was then deorbited with a burn at around 1945 UTC lowering perigee into the atmosphere, leading to a reentry around 2030 UTC over the northeastern Pacific.
• Meanwhile the first stage completed a boostback burn and flew down to the center of the target on the ASDS ship "Just Read The Instructions" in the Pacific at about 1852 UTC. However, on landing one of the deployed legs failed to lock in place and the vehicle toppled and was destroyed.