[Hot News] SPACEX: Why Is CRS-8 Rocket Making A Landing Attempt On A Barge

SpaceX is all set to launch its next rocket into the orbit on Friday, April 8th 2016 from Florida.This time, the payload to be carried by SpaceX to the orbit involves ISS Cargo for the crew on the International Space Station (ISS). The CRS-8 rocket is scheduled to reach the ISS and deliver the cargo to the ISS crew on Sunday morning, provided the launch of the SpaceX CRS-8 space vehicle happens on Friday.

However, the most fascinating thing about this launch, especially for the SpaceX fans has been about the next attempt by SpaceX to try to land their rocket's first stage back on a drone ship. SpaceX has been trying to accomplish this feat for quite sometime and have already been successful in achieving this on land in December 2015. However, this time SpaceX engineers will try to make a landing attempt on a drone ship/barge.

Why Is CRS-8 Rocket Trying Landing Attempt On A Barge?

One of the main reason as to why SpaceX wants to achieve a successful landing on a drone ship is that according to SpaceX's current roadmap, they are currently testing a new rocket called the Falcon Heavy that is said to be way bigger than the current generation of rockets from SpaceX that includes Falcon 9.

Falcon Heavy, because of its sheer size will not be getting a clearance from the Air Force to make an attempt at landing on land because of the risks involved with things going wrong with this Falcon Heavy landing attempt on land.

Hence, rather than trying to make an attempt at landing on land, SpaceX engineers will try to steer the Falcon Heavy onto a drone ship that is currently stationed in the sea several hundreds of kilometers from the land, thereby minimizing the risk and disturbance to the civilians, in case things goes wrong.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has always been talking about making SpaceX rockets re-usable by bringing it back to earth after successful mission to make a next flight with limited modifications to the used rocket. By doing so, Elon Musk expects that the cost of re-using the rocket could go down to as low as 40 million dollars from the current 60-80 million dollars required per mission. If and when SpaceX achieves this milestone, Elon Musk would like to continue his mission to carry human beings to the red planet, Mars to ensure living beings be multiplanetary and not be at a risk of being eliminated from the universe, when a bad catastrophe occurs to planet Earth!