SpaceX still hasn't managed to land a rocket in the ocean
Elon Musk's SpaceX failed for the third time in about a year Sunday to land its Falcon 9 rocket upright on a barge in the open ocean, The Verge reports. The company tweeted that a landing leg broke in the attempt at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Landing in water is tougher than landing on solid ground, but achieving the feat would allow SpaceX to save money and reuse rockets for future launches. In the first two such landing attempts, the rockets exploded.
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.