CEO Elon Musk described the failure, jokingly, as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly." Today, the private space launch company is going to try again—firing an uncrewed Dragon spacecraft into low Earth orbit for a rendezvous with the International Space Station. And then it's going to try to land on that robot boat again.

The mission is a cargo-resupply, the sixth of 12 for which SpaceX has contracted with NASA. It'll carry almost 4,400 lbs of food, supplies, and scientific equipment. That's important to the astronauts up there, of course, but the company really wants to stick this landing. It'd be a proof-of-concept in using reusable rockets for spaceflight.