The middle booster of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket failed to land on its drone ship and landed 90 meters from the drone ship where it was supposed to land, though Falcon Heavy’s outer cores successfully landed after the launch, The Verge reported that.
The center core was only able to relight one of the three engines necessary to land, and so it hit the water at 500 km/h about 90 meters from the drone ship.
SpaceX also managed to guide at least two of the Falcon Heavy's first-stage rocket boosters to land upright back on Earth. They cut back through the Earth's atmosphere and landed in unison at a Kennedy Space Center landing pad.
"That was probably the most exciting thing I've ever seen - literally ever," billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk said.
The third booster was supposed to land on a sea-faring platform called a droneship - but just as it was about to land, the livestream cut out. Musk confirmed after the launch that the booster crashed.
U.S. company SpaceX successfully conducted the first test flight of Falcon Heavy; the rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, February 6.
