Note: Watch SpaceX's live webcast at the end of this post. The feed should begin around 6:25 p.m. ET.
SpaceX will try to launch a potentially history-making rocket tonight at 6:35 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida — the company's fourth attempt since February 24.
The payload is fairly standard: a satellite called SES-9, which should boost communications coverage over Asia.
The 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket, however, is a very odd bird. Most rockets cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, yet are rendered as garbage the moment they launch. Instead of being recycled, they crash into the ocean and sink to the bottom after lofting a payload into orbit.
But after delivering SES-9 into space tonight, the Falcon 9 will try to land about half of itself on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean — if finicky supercooled propellants and errant tugboats don't interfere with the launch as they did during the last attempt (Sunday, February 28).
SpaceX tried this feat in earnest on two separate occasions in the past year, but both rocket stages exploded into fireballs on a self-guided ship called "Just Read the Instructions."
A third SpaceX rocket was equipped to land but never got the chance, since it blew up shortly after launch.
Those experimental failures haven't inspired much confidence. In fact, the company said in a press release for this launch that "a successful landing is not expected."
Translation: We think our rocket will most likely explode into bits when it tries to land itself.
Still, the stakes can't be ignored.
Each of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets costs about $60 million. If the company can land even part of that hardware, clean it up, and refuel it for a future launch, it'd be a history-making event.
It might also help usher in an era of spaceflight that's radically less expensive.
SpaceX CEO and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk states on the company's website that a 100-fold cost reduction of access to space is possible, should his rocket-recycling scheme prove as repeatable and reliable as flying an airplane.
And there's reason to believe SpaceX just might succeed this time. On December 21, 2015, the company launched and landed a Falcon 9 rocket on solid ground.
It's not a robotic platform bobbing up and down and shimmying in the Atlantic Ocean, but it's still pretty impressive.
Watch the launch live tonight
Bookmark this page to watch the potentially groundbreaking event live (below) on Friday, March 4, 2016.
SpaceX has said that strong winds high up in the upper atmosphere remain a "watch item," since Musk says they can hit "like a sledgehammer" when a rocket is moving at supersonic speed.
If the launch window holds from 6:35 p.m. ET through 8:06 p.m. ET, and the attempt isn't scrubbed a fourth time, streaming video footage should begin around 6:25 p.m. ET and last through roughly 9 p.m. ET.
If the webcast locks up, try streaming this feed as an alternative. You can watch a highly technical feed here if you're a rocket-scientist type.
