Anyone else gonna wake up in the middle of the night for this one? The launch of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon space capsule to the International Space Station is slated for 3:37 AM CST tomorrow morning.



The kicker for this launch is that SpaceX will be attempting to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 on a drone barge in the Atlantic ocean. Really hoping they can pull it off. The live webcast starts here at 3:30 AM CST.

This is the barge.



This is what a successful landing will look like.

They've already had a successful "soft" landing in the ocean (video here), but the vehicle was destroyed by swells.

Here's a nice video detailing what their final goal is for rocket reusability.

Successful launch. Dragon is on its way to rendezvous with the ISS. Webcast is over, but they will provide updates on the stage 1 attempted landing as they come.

Elon just tweeted that it made it to drone ship, but landed hard.

quote:

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Elon just tweeted that it made it to drone ship, but landed hard.

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@elonmuskRocket made it to drone spaceport ship, but landed hard. Close, but no cigar this time. Bodes well for the future tho.

12sShip itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced...

Really hope we get to see some video of the hard landing.....especially as that's all anyone really wanted to see, apparently.

It was about 5am local time, I wouldn't expect great video. And if it isn't good, I doubt they'd release it.