SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced a new project for his private spaceflight company Friday, which involves landing a Falcon 9 rocket on a platform in the middle of the ocean.
The landing is intended to help SpaceX create boosters than can be used more than once, according to Discovery News. The company is scheduled for a Falcon 9 launch on Dec. 9th, when it will send a rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to the International Space Station with a Dragon cargo capsule.
The idea is to have the rockets land at the launch site revamped and refueled to fly on additional missions. Previous Falcon 9 rockets knelt over and broke apart after landing on the surface of the ocean in their return from missions. Musk said at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AeroAstro Centennial Symposium that the rocket for the December launch has the same height as a 14-story building.
"When a 14-story building falls over, it's quite a belly flop," he added.
The December launch will be the first time that SpaceX has tried to land a Falcon 9 rocket on a floating platform, which is close to 300 feet long and 170 feet wide, Space.com reported. Musk said using a floating platform will help bring the rocket back to dry land, and he and his company plan to reduce the cost of getting to space by creating reusable rocket systems and capsules.
"If we land on that flight, I think we'll be able to re-fly that booster," he said.
However, Musk believes SpaceX has a 50 percent chance at best at a successful landing on its first try, saying that landing on top of the platform could be "tricky."
Despite the lack of certainty with the initial launch, Musk said SpaceX has a greater chance of success with landing on the platform in future launches planned to take place throughout 2015, Discovery News reported.
"There are a lot of launches that will occur over the next year," he said. "I think it's probably quite likely- 80 percent or 90 percent likely- that one of those flights we'll be able to land and re-fly. I think we're quite close."
