Almighty Poseidon recovers his SpaceX rocket in the ocean

Remember last Friday when we told you how SpaceX managed to land and recover the three rocket engines that were the first step of their Falcon Heavy rocket? It was a big deal. Unfortunately, in the end, the company had only two-thirds of success because its center, the one that landed on the landing platform above the SpaceX drone named Of course I still love you, was lost at sea.

The mere fact of landing a booster vertically after launching it in space is already quite important; landing on a floating mat is even more difficult, but SpaceX seems to have mastered this game very well. What is a little less mature is their methods to secure the recall once it is on the barge.

Normally, Falcon 9 boosters are attached to the barge via a large flat-footed robot, normally called the Octograbber. It looks like a giant Roomba that could suck up your whole house in its little trash can:

The problem is that the Octograbber is primarily designed to work with unique Falcon 9 boosters or boosters on both sides of the Falcon Heavy stack. The central booster is apparently designed in a different way that the Octograbber can not catch the reminder, which partly explains why the reminder was lost, which Elon himself confirmed on Twitter:

The other problem is that in the case of a Falcon Heavy launch, at least one booster must land at sea, because SpaceX has only two landing pads at Cape Canaveral. The central booster spends more time at altitude than the booster seats, so it makes sense to put it further offshore.

Elon also tweeted that the engines could be recovered, but nothing is still certain:

Traveling in space is not easy, even in the regions of the Earth. Hopefully Aquaman is enjoying his new rocket.