In January, Elon Musk's SpaceX came close to a controlled landing of one of its rockets after a quick trip to space, before things took a fiery, explosive turn for the worst. Today, assuming all goes well and those X wing fins remain powered, it will try again. A launch scheduled for 4:33PM ET will send supplies to the International Space Station as a part of the CRS-6 mission, before the Falcon 9's first stage will try to land itself on a barge in the ocean. Creating rockets that can used again could help cut the cost of sending stuff to space, so there's a lot at stake beyond just looking cool in its Grasshopper demos. The launch will be webcast live starting at 4:15PM (the video feed is embedded after the break) although we'll have to wait a bit longer to see if the landing is successful.
Update: No launch today due to weather (Elon Musk tweeted it's "due to lighting from an approaching anvil cloud"). The next launch attempt is scheduled for tomorrow at 4:10PM ET.
Launch postponed due to lightning from an approaching anvil cloud
- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2015
Launch scrubbed today for weather, next opportunity tomorrow 4/14 at 4:10pm EDT.
- SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 13, 2015
#Falcon9 & #Dragon now vertical in advance of today's CRS-6 launch, targeted for 4:33pm ET. http://t.co/tdni53IviI http://ift.tt/1as93CG
- SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 13, 2015 What happened last time (January 16th):
James Potter