Despite the setback, Musk said he felt "optimistic" about a future attempt at landing a SpaceX rocket in this way.
In another message, he quipped that "at least the bits were bigger this time", suggesting the landing was more controlled than last year's two sea-landing efforts that also ended in sizable explosions following heavy landings on the barge's deck.
On Sunday, SpaceX tried and was unsuccessful at landing the first stage of its second-stage rocket on a drone ship floating in the Pacific.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen as it launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4 East with the Jason-3 spacecraft onboard on Jan 17, 2016.
With an aim to detect and measure ocean phenomena like El Nino, NASA has scheduled to launch the latest in the series of U.S.-European satellites on Sunday at 10:42 a.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, with a backup opportunity on Monday.
SpaceX said that the stage landed softly but leg 3 didn't lockout.
It said the bid to nail the experimental landing of the first stage on the SpaceX drone ship "Just Read the Instructions", had been a "secondary test objective".
Kevin Meissner, who used to work for SpaceX, told Xinhua, "the sea landing doesn't require much fuel because you don't need to turn around and fly all the way back to the land". SpaceX accomplished the feat December 21 during the launch of 11 satellites for customer Orbcomm, in the process becoming the only entity ever to achieve a controlled rocket landing during an orbital liftoff.
The company has so far failed its attempted sea landings, but did successfully land one of its rockets for the first time last month at Cape Canaveral.
In a tweet, Musk said "touchdown speed was ok" but the latch on one leg did not fastened properly 'so it tipped over after landing'. The payload was the Jason-3 satellite, a project led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and two European partners.
SpaceX and other private spaceflight companies want the capability of bringing their rockets back for upright landings to reduce the cost of space travel. The ocean-monitoring satellite will examine topography on the ocean floors, as well as improve hurricane forecasting and marine navigation. In that attempt, the 14-story rocket ran out of hydraulic fluid shortly before it hit the ship and broke into pieces.
