SpaceX successfully launched its Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station on Tuesday at 4:10 p.m. ET, but it couldn't quite stick the historic landing it's been trying to complete for months.

Nine minutes after launch, the company attempted to bring back the first stage of the rocket — the Falcon 9, which carried Dragon into space — on a drone ship off the coast of Florida.

The rocket landed on the ship, according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, but the impact was too hard to maintain the integrity of the first stage of the rocket.

Ascent successful. Dragon enroute to Space Station. Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015

Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing pic.twitter.com/eJWzN6KSJa — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2015

A few minutes into flight, the first stage separated from the rocket. That will be the part of the Falcon 9 that SpaceX will try to land.

On board the Dragon capsule are supplies for astronauts living in the space station, including an Italian espresso machine that is all the rage. The Dragon will arrive to the ISS on Friday.

The ISS cargo re-supply mission was originally scheduled to launch on Monday, but it was scrubbed due to unseasonable inclement weather moving through the Cape Canaveral, Florida area, near the launch pad.

The landing

After Dragon and Falcon 9’s second stage were on their way to orbit, SpaceX tried to bring back the first stage of the rocket via a controlled reentry through Earth’s atmosphere. Its target landing zone was a drone ship in the ocean.

This was be SpaceX's second attempt at this type of landing. It tried a similar return in January, but it ended in a catastrophic failure.

Since SpaceX's last landing attempt, the drone ship has been upgraded to tolerate more powerful ocean swells, and the rocket design has been tweaked a bit as well.

Making rockets reusable is a major goal for Elon Musk's space company because it could drastically cut the costs of future space exploration missions.

SpaceX said on Sunday it was confident it could stick Tuesday's landing.

"I would up my probability to 75% at this point in time, maybe 80," Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of mission assurance, said during a pre-launch press briefing.

Additional reporting by Mashable Science Editor Andrew Freedman.