SpaceX Plans to return rocket on launch today.

The story at Business Insider

SpaceX Has A ~30% Chance Of Pulling Off A Major Breakthrough Today Monday's launch of SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship atop a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station has something special in store. The Dragon spacecraft will not only carry more than 4,000 pounds of supplies and equipment to the station, it will also be an attempt to return the rocket's first stage with four landing legs to Earth as part of an experimental reusable rocket program. The chance of success is between 30 to 40%, according to SpaceX. A reusable rocket will make the future of commercial travel much cheaper since the cost of fuel is much less compared to the cost of building a rocket from scratch every time. "The entire recovery of the first stage is entirely experimental," SpaceX vice president of mission assurance Hans Koenigsmann told Space.com. "We've been doing improvements to the recovery of the first stage in little steps, being very careful it doesn't affect the performance of Dragon." The third resupply mission from Space X, the California-based company founded by billionaire Elon Musk, will launch Monday at 4:48 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Another case of private industry being cheaper than the govt.. :-)

They had a leak yesterday and were supposed to do it today Friday.  

I'll check and see if it was a go today.

Edit: From their website. (Obviously posted yesterday.)

Quote :

Today’s launch has been scrubbed due to a Helium leak on Falcon 9’s first stage. A fix will be implemented by the next launch opportunity on Friday April 18, though weather on that date isn’t ideal. Check back here for updates.

I watched the launch and see that the linkup with the ISS was successful too. Bet the astronauts on the ISS were glad to see that module!

Jake92 wrote:

Another case of private industry being cheaper than the govt.. :-)

Had the same thoughts....

nochain wrote:

I watched the launch and see that the linkup with the ISS was successful too. Bet the astronauts on the ISS were glad to see that module!

Were they able to bring the first stage back to earth safely, Nochain?

Eric wrote:

nochain wrote:

I watched the launch and see that the linkup with the ISS was successful too. Bet the astronauts on the ISS were glad to see that module!

Were they able to bring the first stage back to earth safely, Nochain?

They did; it successfully landed in the Atlantic but it seems recovery may be difficult because of the sea state, that's the last I saw anyway.

I thought it was supposed to land on terra firma.