CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lit the skies before sunrise early this morning (March 11) as it orbited a new batch of 60 Starlink Internet satellites, before landing on a floating platform at sea.
The two-stage Falcon 9 booster taken off from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3:13 a.m. EST (0813 GMT). About 8.5 minutes later, the rocket’s reusable first stage returned to Earth for its sixth landing, landing on one of SpaceX’s drone ships. The floating platform, called “Just Read the Instructions”, was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles (630 kilometers) downstream.
It was a clear Florida night for the mission’s second attempt. The launch was originally scheduled for Monday night (March 9), but was delayed so SpaceX could perform more pre-launch checkouts. Weather forecasters from the US Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predicted a 90% chance of favorable conditions for launch this morning, and Mother Nature provided that.
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This latest launch marked SpaceX’s seventh mission in 2021 and the launch of the 21st Starlink with 60 satellites overall. It played one of the Falcon 9’s more famous early stages in the fleet – B1058.
B1058, adorned with a now sooty NASA worm logo, is the supercharger that brought two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in May last year, returning an orbital manned spaceflight to US soil with SpaceXs. Demo-2 mission
The experienced launcher also delivered a Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, a communications satellite for South Korea’s military and most satellites ever launched on a single mission (Transporter-1). Today B1058 transported its second stack of Starlink satellites.
The pre-dawn spectacle marked the 110th overall flight of a Falcon 9 missile and the 56th reflight of a Falcon 9 first stage. It was the sixth mission for this particular booster, and SpaceX set a new record for the fastest turnaround time for a rocket with that many flights under its belt.
The B1058 last flew on January 24 and fired again this morning, just 45 days later, from the same launch pad; the previous record for such an experienced booster was 59 days.
SpaceX relies heavily on its fleet of veteran missiles, which has enabled the company to keep up with its launch ambitions. However, SpaceX has always emphasized that while booster recovery is beneficial, the main goal of any mission is to successfully deliver the payload to space.
The company first recovered a first stage in 2015, when a Falcon 9 booster landed on solid ground on one of the company’s Florida landing pads. Since then, SpaceX has strived to better understand the recovery process and how much wear and tear each launch causes on the rocket.
With each recovery attempt, the company has been able to fine-tune its process and reduce the time between flights. SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk has said his long-term vision is for missiles that resemble airplanes in that they take off, land, refuel and take off in the short term.
For example, Musk has said that SpaceX’s goal is to launch, land, and then relaunch and land again the same rocket within 24 hours – a milestone that has not yet been reached.
While SpaceX makes rocket landing seem easy, a recent anomaly shows it’s not always a slam dunk. On February 15, the company broke a 24-booster recovery sequence when a Falcon 9 first stage, designated B1059, did not land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after launching another batch of Starlink satellites into orbit.
The accident was blamed on “heat damage,” which company officials elaborated on during a recent conference call. Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director for manned spaceflight, said one of the booster’s protective engine covers broke, allowing hot gases from the engine to leak to places where it wasn’t intended, causing a turn off the engine during flightThis shutdown eventually caused the missile to miss its target on the drone ship.
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SpaceX upgraded its Falcon 9 rocket in 2018, giving the vehicle a range of improvements, including a more robust thermal protection system, titanium grille fins and a more durable intermediate stage to facilitate reuse. The upgrades allowed the missile to reflow several times with some refurbishments in between.
The company said the Falcon 9 we are seeing today could be able to fly a minimum of 10 times with little to no refurbishment between flights and as much as 100 times in total before retirement. But such numbers may not be set in stone. Instead, those goals could be more of a guideline that changes as the company refines its renovation process.
SpaceX has two boosters close to the 10 mission milestone after flying a record eight times, and it’s possible we could see one or both double digits this year. The company has big ambitions for 2021, with the goal of launching a total of 40 missions from its launch pads in California and Florida.
This morning’s mission marked the 76th SpaceX booster landing to date, and the 19th for “Just Read the Instructions.”
To get its returning boosters back, SpaceX uses two massive floating landing pads – “Of course I still love you” and “Just read the instructions” – in addition to its landing pads, which allow the company to launch and land more rockets. Usually, the drone ships see the most action, as it takes more fuel reserves to get all the way back to land than to get to sea.
Just Read the Instructions is the newer of the two ships. Originally stationed in California, the ship was relocated to the East Coast in 2020 to assist with the increased launch cadence.
SpaceX has been planning a third drone ship for some time now, and it is possible that the ship would serve the west coast as the company aims to increase the number of launches from its facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. There is no expected completion date on the third ship, but a recent vacancy for a drone ship repairman suggests this could be sometime in the near future.
Expansion of the mega constellation
With this morning’s successful launch, SpaceX has now put more than 1,200 Starlink satellites into orbit, including some that are no longer operational. The company has planned that its original Starlink constellation will be 1,440 strong, but has requested approval tens of thousands Lake. There are many more launches to come as SpaceX fills this growing mega constellation.
The company launched its Starlink program with one key goal: to connect the world. To that end, SpaceX designed a fleet of flat panel broadband satellites that fly across the Earth and provide Internet coverage to users around the world.
SpaceX has recently started taking preorders for the public rollout. Potential users can sign up for the service through a website, pay a deposit and then be notified when coverage is provided in their area.
The rollout will be on a first-come, first-served basis as the company is engaged in an extensive international and domestic beta testing phase. Prior to this launch, SpaceX has rolled out a service to Germany and New Zealand and is working on expanding its existing service in the UK.
But that is not everything. Recent filings indicate that the company is seeking permission to extend its services to moving vehicles, including airplanes, boats and RVs. According to Musk, the current Starlink user terminals, which facilitate access to the overhead satellites, are too big to put in cars, so for now it focuses on larger vehicles.
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Falling fairings
SpaceX’s dynamic cockpit-catching boat duo, GO Ms Tree and GO Ms Chief, are still on the sidelines undergoing maintenance in Port Canaveral, Florida. As such, SpaceX has deployed two of its Dragon recovery vessels, GO Searcher and GO Navigator, at the planned recovery site.
The two boats received upgrades that allowed them to scoop out parts of the water. The charging fairing is a shell-like piece of hardware designed to protect satellites as their missile travels through the atmosphere. SpaceX fairings are composed of two halves. At a designated point after launch, the two pieces are thrown overboard and fall back to Earth.
Historically, the cargo tub was a one-off piece of hardware, which was discarded into the ocean after each mission. But SpaceX has been working to expand its reuse efforts and has had success repairing and refitting fairings.
For this mission, the active fairing (half with the engines that eject it from the missile) has flown once before and the passive (or other half) twice before. Once recovered from the ocean, SpaceX inspects and overhauls every fairing piece.
Next up for SpaceX is another Starlink mission, which could start this weekend. The company is also preparing for its next astronaut mission, Crew-2, which will be launched no earlier than April 22 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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