SpaceX plans ocean rocket landing on barge

The company has already tried to achieve such a feat in the past on two separate occasions but failed both times.

Earlier in 2015, a defective brace inside the upper stage of its Falcon 9 rocket resulted in a post lift-off explosion which destroyed a Dragon capsule that was intended to carry supplies to the International Space Station.

However, officials are more confident that a third attempt will be successful after the company managed to both launch a rocket into space and successfully land it back on earth in December for the first time.

A Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a NASA ocean-monitoring satellite, is currently planned to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on 17 January.

About two minutes after lift-off, the first stage of the rocket will separate, flip around, fire engines to slow its fall, deploy landing legs and attempt to touch down on a floating landing pad in the Pacific Ocean.

If the ocean landing is proved to be a success, it should allow the California-based company to recover its boosters from a wider variety of space missions. SpaceX wants to refurbish and re-fly its rockets in order to reduce the financial burden of space flight.

Last year, the company’s founder and the CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk said: "If one can figure out how to effectively reuse rockets just like airplanes, the cost of access to space will be reduced by as much as a factor of a hundred.”

SpaceX is currently concentrating on reusing the first stage of its Falcon rockets, which sell for about $61m (£42m) according to the company's website. The fuel cost of launching the rocket only amounts to $200,000, Musk recently said.

The company hopes to be able to return the rocket's second-stage for reuse as well in the future.