![]() More than 90 percent of the heat being trapped in the Earth system by the greenhouse effect is going into the ocean, said Jason-3 program scientist Laury Miller, chief of NOAA's Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry in Washington, D.C. The spacecraft will make superprecise measurements of sea-level heights around the world for at least three years from that perch, providing "scientists with critical information about circulation patterns in the ocean and about both global and regional changes in sea level and the climate implications of a warming world," according to a mission description.Īn artist's depiction of the Jason-3 ocean-monitoring satellite in orbit above Earth. If all goes according to plan, Jason-3 will spend about 17 days maneuvering to a polar orbit with an altitude of 830 miles (1,336 km). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) 1,120-lb. While the landing try perhaps generated the most buzz and excitement Sunday, the main goal of the launch was getting the U.S. ![]() Incidentally, Sunday's touchdown try came at sea rather than on land because SpaceX didn't have approval to come down at Vandenberg, company officials said. The latch failure may have occurred because condensation from the heavy fog at Vandenberg caused ice to build up in the mechanism, Musk added in an Instagram post Sunday. Touchdown speed was ok, but a leg lockout didn't latch, so it tipped over after landing." "However, that was not what prevented it being good. Similar to an aircraft carrier vs land: much smaller target area, that's also translating & rotating," Musk tweeted Sunday. The rocket's first stage separated, then performed a series of three engine burns that put it on course for the deck of "Just Read the Instructions," where it came down about 9 minutes after liftoff. EST (1842 GMT) Sunday from Vandenberg, rising through a heavy fog. The two-stage Falcon 9 blasted off at 1:42 p.m. These landing attempts are part of SpaceX's quest to develop fully and rapidly reusable rockets - technology that company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said could slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100, potentially making Mars colonies economically feasible. (Blue Origin, the company run by founder Jeff Bezos, landed its New Shepard vehicle in November, but that achievement came after a suborbital test flight.) 21 during the launch of 11 satellites for customer Orbcomm, in the process becoming the only entity ever to achieve a controlled rocket landing during an orbital liftoff. The company has, however, successfully landed a Falcon 9 first stage on terra firma. Both of those prior attempts, which occurred off the Florida coast, were near misses as well the rocket stage hit "Just Read the Instructions" but ended up falling over and exploding on the ship's deck. SpaceX had tried such droneship landings twice before, in January 2015 and April 2015. (Image credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist) See how SpaceX's rocket landing tests work in this infographic. In a first for space flight, SpaceX will attempt to fly its Falcon 9 booster rocket to a safe landing aboard an offshore platform.
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