It's not easy getting into space, Elon Musk learned once again Sunday.

The rocket booster landed on target on a barge in the Pacific Ocean, but snapped a support leg as it touched down, SpaceX officials said. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, and successfully launched the Jason-3 satellite into low-earth orbit, before the first-stage rocket began falling back to Earth. Word came that the spacecraft was "flying free" shortly after - a success.

Meteorologists predict swells of 10- to 13-feet where the barge will be waiting for the rocket landing attempt.

In the footage, you can see how a problem with one of the Falcon 9's leg-locking mechanisms causes the whole thing to tip to the side, fall over, and explode in a fiery mess of smoke and flames. "Won't be last RUD [rapid unplanned destruction], but am optimistic about upcoming ship landing", tweeted Musk.

"Root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff", he said.

Most-read articles Fourth time's a charm?

The attempted landing at sea was SpaceX's third, after two previous failures. While it may not seem like a lot, whether the rocket lands on sea or shore can make be the difference between powering a rocket to 6000 km/hr or 9000 km/hr, as Musk notes above. The companies can improve their services and reduce costs by returning re-usable rockets to Earth, instead of allowing them to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, but this has posed a challenge.

If they can be recycled, the SpaceX dream goes, space exploration will be much, much cheaper.

SpaceX does not yet have federal clearance to land rockets at Vandenberg, prompting Sunday's ocean try, company vice president Hans Koenigsmann told reporters on Friday. A February launch was cancelled because of choppy waters. In the second attempt, the rocket was moving too fast and landed too hard, and that rocket was also destroyed.

But last month, SpaceX managed a historic first controlled return of an orbital stage of a rocket, so everything's all good, Elon Musk! But the company really wants to improve its ability to touch down at sea, a goal that comes with so many challenges it's not surprising this latest attempt failed. This time, the company tried for another landing at sea.