SpaceX has announced it will make attempt to land a launched rocket on a land-based pad instead of one situated in the open ocean.
According to Space.com, NASA confirmed the rocket re-landing attempt will take place at the Cape Canaveral, Fla. base, but there is not a set date at this time. The last time SpaceX attempted to land a rocket back on Earth after launching it, the rocket malfunctioned and exploded.
"You know how they want to fly the stage back, right? Their plan is to land it out here on the Cape [Canaveral] side," Carol Scott, who works technical integration for SpaceX within NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters Tuesday.
SpaceX is working to design reusable rockets to reduce the expense to NASA for flying unmanned resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX is also designing spacecraft meant to ferry astronauts to the ISS, which would end the U.S.' reliance on the Russian Space Agency in that respect.
SpaceX did not comment to Space.com, but company officials previously indicated the next test flight would take place in December.
Like SpaceX, Orbital Sciences is also contracted by NASA to fly resupply missions to the ISS and has experienced a rocket failure. While such setbacks can seem devastating as they are happening, the companies know failure is part of the process.
"The mishap was very disappointing and a pretty big blow to the team," Frank DeMauro, Orbital's vice president of human space systems, told The Washington Post. "The day of the mishap, we licked our wounds and let ourselves grieve a little bit, but got right into the process of figuring out how we were going to return to fly."
