SpaceX dragon en route to deliver ISS espresso machine, but there's mixed news about the Falcon landing

Tuesday, April 14, 2015, 11:46 AM - It's a mix of good news and bad news regarding today's SpaceX rocket launch, but the Dragon is on its way up to the International Space Station for a Friday rendezvous.

Good News #1

It was a picture-perfect liftoff from Kennedy Space Center this afternoon, as SpaceX's Dragon cargo vessel launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket at just seconds after 4:10 pm ET on Tuesday.

This was the second attempt at the launch, as three minutes before liftoff on Monday an abort was called due to thunderstorms in the area coming too close for comfort to ensure a safe and successful trip to orbit.

Good News #2

This launch was SpaceX's third, and best chance so far to land the Falcon 9 rocket 1st stage on their drone barge - named Just Follow The Instructions - out on the Atlantic Ocean.

Shortly after being released from the 2nd stage of the rocket, the 1st stage made a controlled descent all the way from the edge of space back down to Earth, and found its way to the exact spot it needed to be for landing.

The Bad News

However, despite that amazing achievement, as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in his Twitter feed shortly thereafter, the result was not exactly as hoped.

Good News #3

The launch is still going to make history, though, regardless of the landing attempt ending in the destruction of the rocket.

This is due to a very specific piece of equipment that will be arriving at the ISS on Friday.

Packed away on the Dragon spacecraft, among roughly 2 metric tons of food, equipment and science experiments headed up to the space station, are a few interesting items:

• New LCD screens for the station monitors
• Osteo-4 - an experiment to investigate how microgravity affects the strength and development of bones
• Rodent Research-2 - a mouse habitat for the station, to study the effects of weightlessness on muscles
• Synthetic Muscle - an investigation into the development of synthetic muscles for robots, so that they can perform more human-like operations on the station

Of special note, though, is this new piece of station equipment, designed and built by Italian coffee company Lavazza, aerospace engineering company Argotec, and the Italian Space Agency:

• ISSpresso - a very important 'experiment' designed to test how we can make living in space more like being at home, and how this can affect crew morale. This will be the first time that astronauts in orbit will be able to have fresh, hot beverages, such as brewed tea, Espresso, Consommé and others, for their enjoyment

RELATED VIDEO: The developers of the ISSpresso discuss their amazing new invention

Sources: SpaceX | NASA | Space.com | Argotec/Lavazza