Check out this video of SpaceX's third and latest attempt to land its Falcon 9 rocket on a barge.
The 70-foot-tall booster actually touched down on the platform at sea, but one of the legs didn't stick the landing.
CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that a "lockout collet" didn't latch on one of the four legs. Even so, he's optimistic the company's success rate at landing rockets vertically will improve to about 70 percent in 2016 and 90 percent in 2017. It accomplished the feat for the first time last month in what was hailed as a historic breakthrough.
In addition to its work for NASA, SpaceX wants to compete against a Lockheed Martin Corp.-Boeing Co. joint venture for contracts to launch military and spy satellites. It's seeking to develop reusable rockets -- with components that can lift off, land and liftoff again -- to reduce launch costs.
The audio may be the best part of this video:
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