autonomous spaceport drone ship , ASDS (abbreviation)

SpaceX also attempted to land the first stage on its autonomous spaceport drone ship in the Atlantic ocean.

Autonomous spaceport drone ship.

On 22 November 2014 Musk released a photograph of the "Autonomous spaceport drone ship" along with additional details of its construction and size.

Further tests starting with the first stage of the CRS-5 vehicle have involved the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship.

The first was that the craft came in with a higher than expected lateral velocity, though the craft still made contact with the "autonomous spaceport drone ship."

In the event, SpaceX built the autonomous spaceport drone ship in 2014, and conducted an initial flight test and landing attempt in January 2015.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk displayed a photograph of the "autonomous spaceport drone ship" in November 2014.

After further ocean landing tests, the first stage of the CRS-5 launch vehicle attempted a landing on a floating landing platform, the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship.

The application also confirms communication uplinks for use with the first stage of this mission as it conducts another attempt at a first-ever propulsive landing on the Autonomous spaceport drone ship after staging.

SpaceX calls the barge an autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS), and this particular mission's ASDS was named Of Course I Still Love You.

An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS), is a ship type: an ocean-going, barge-derived, floating landing platform that aerospace company SpaceX began using in early 2015 to conduct a flight test program to receive returning first stages after the boosters had lofted spacecraft onto an orbital trajectory.