In a tragic footnote to shut out a dramatic yr, SpaceX’s fleet-leading B1058 booster—which entered the fleet to nice fanfare in Could 2020 by launching NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken aboard Dragon Endeavour to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS)—has reportedly been misplaced throughout its transportation again to Port Canavaral, as a consequence of excessive winds and waves. Poor B1058 wrapped up a still-unbroken 18th launch in November and a nineteenth launch solely final weekend, leaving three different 17-times-used boosters in lively operational standing able to proceed pushing information in 2024.
Early 26 December, SpaceX revealed the information of B1058’s demise, noting that “The Falcon fleet’s life-leading rocket accomplished its nineteenth and closing launch and touchdown on 23 December.” It added that throughout nearly 37 months of service the outdated booster had lifted two astronauts safely into orbit, in addition to greater than 860 satellites, totaling over 573,000 kilos (260,000 kilograms).
“Throughout transport again to Port early this morning,” SpaceX tweeted within the small hours of 26 December, “the booster tipped over on the drone ship as a consequence of excessive winds and waves. Newer Falcon boosters have upgraded touchdown legs with the potential to self-level and mitigate such a problem.”
Left unclear was whether or not B1058’s carcass—or wreckage—is salvageable. It could definitely be a terrific pity to lose this singular booster which facilitated the return U.S. astronauts to area, by way of a U.S.-made spacecraft, atop a U.S.-built rocket, and from U.S. soil, for the primary time because the finish of the Area Shuttle Program in July 2011.
B1058 roared skyward for the primary time on 30 Could 2020, when she lifted Dragon Endeavour and her crew of Commander Doug Hurley and Pilot Bob Behnken—each former shuttle astronauts—to the ISS on the Demo-2 mission. The pair went on to spend greater than two months aboard the sprawling orbital complicated, supporting Expedition 63 Commander Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, performing 4 complicated classes of Extravehicular Exercise (EVA) and aiding within the conduct of dozens of scientific analysis investigations.
Even earlier than Hurley and Behnken returned dwelling from their 63-day mission, B1058 had already wrapped up a second flight, launching once more the next 20 July with the geostationary-bound ANASIS-II navy communications satellite tv for pc for the Authorities of South Korea. In doing so, she established a brand new empirical report—now damaged—of solely 51 days between pairs of launches by the identical orbital-class booster, eclipsing an outdated Area Shuttle report that had stood for greater than three many years.
B1058 then entered an everyday cadence of launch operations, efficiently delivering 625 Starlink low-orbiting web communications satellites to orbit by way of the multi-payload Transporter-1 rideshare flight in January 2021 and 14 devoted missions between October 2020 and final weekend. Notably, Transporter-1 noticed her loft the very best variety of discrete payloads—a whopping 143, tipping the scales at round 11,000 kilos (5,000 kilograms)—ever launched by a single U.S. orbital-class rocket.
Different payloads included the primary Cargo Dragon to fly to the ISS below the second-round Industrial Resupply Providers-2 (CRS2) contract. Launched in December 2020, the month-long CRS-21 mission noticed B1058 assist ship over 6,400 kilos (2,900 kilograms) of kit and provides to the incumbent Expedition 64 crew and return round 4,400 kilos (2,000 kilograms) of unneeded gear and experiment outcomes again to Earth.
Included in B1058’s ISS-bound haul was the Bishop business airlock, developed collectively by Thales Alenia Area, Boeing and NanoRacks for set up onto the station’s Tranquility node. CRS-21 turned the primary Cargo Dragon to autonomously “dock” —moderately than robotically “berth”, utilizing the Canadarm2 manipulator—and in launching it B1058 additionally marked SpaceX’s a hundredth absolutely profitable Falcon 9 mission.
Though her launch log has been overwhelmingly dominated by Starlink, with over 73 % of her 19 flights dedicated to the web communications community, B1058 additionally lifted the 105-payload Transporter-3 on her personal tenth mission in January 2022. That exact mission additionally noticed her land, for the primary and solely time in her profession, on stable floor, alighting on Touchdown Zone (LZ)-1 at Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station, Fla., her 18 different flights all returning to the decks of the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS).
Final fall, she turned the primary Falcon 9 to fly on a 14th and fifteenth event, however because the fleet-leaders have been licensed solely to fifteen missions her “lively” standing was paused as recertification acquired underway to increase her lifetime to twenty flights. Returning to the fold final summer season, she turned the primary booster to hit a sixteenth launch in July, a seventeenth in September and an 18th in November. Eighteen flights is as but unmatched by another member of the fleet, positioning B1058 at the very least two missions forward of any of her siblings.
Her loss at sea is definitely disappointing, for it appeared not unreasonable simply three days in the past that she may have pushed past 20 flights as quickly as subsequent spring. Throughout her first yr of service (2020-2021), her turnaround occasions averaged about seven weeks, with a private better of solely 27 days attained between a pair of flights in March and April 2021.
As her flight charge elevated past her tenth launch in January 2022, spacing between missions elevated from two to a few months and—in response to the prolonged recertification marketing campaign earlier in 2023—greater than a half-year elapsed between her fifteenth and sixteenth outings. Turnaround occasions restabilized final summer season with the ultimate 4 flights of her profession respectively spaced lower than two months aside.
With B1058 gone, three boosters—B1060, B1061 and B1062—stand as the present fleet-leaders, every having reached 17 missions: B1060 in September and the others late final month and early in December. And behind them stand two others with 15 flights to their credit score, three extra which have already handed the ten-mission mark and a dozen others that are both repeat-flyers as single-stick Falcon 9s or Falcon Heavy side-boosters or are awaiting the opening launches of their careers within the coming days and weeks.
