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It turns out that for SpaceX, landing a rocket booster upright on a droneship in the ocean is the easy part. It\u2019s getting it back to land that\u2019s tricky.<\/p>\n
SpaceX has reported the loss of a first-stage Falcon 9 booster that had flown a record 19 times for the company, including a historic mission that launched the company\u2019s first crew to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
Booster 1058 completed what turned out to be its final flight on Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and, as usual, the 42.1-meter-tall booster landed safely on a droneship waiting in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n
But while sailing back to base, extreme weather conditions caused the booster to topple over, with a chunk of it later falling into the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring transport back to Port early this morning, the booster tipped over on the droneship due to high winds and waves,\u201d SpaceX explained in a social media post, adding that newer Falcon 9 boosters have enhanced landing legs designed to keep it upright in challenging conditions.<\/p>\n
The Falcon fleet\u2019s life leading rocket completed its 19th and final launch and landing on December 23. This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit 2 astronauts and more than 860 satellites \u2014 totaling 260+ metric tons \u2014 in ~3.5 years pic.twitter.com\/q1ANdGCpEg<\/p>\n
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 26, 2023<\/p>\n
In a separate post, SpaceX executive Kiko Dontchev said it was \u201csuper disappointing and sad to lose booster 1058.\u201d<\/p>\n
He explained that a toppling can occur \u201cwhen you get a certain set of landing conditions that lead to the legs having uneven loading,\u201d adding that heavy wind or choppy waters \u201cthen cause the booster to teeter and slide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dontchev added that despite the setback, \u201cwe will make lemonade out of lemons and learn as much as possible from historic 1058 on our path to aircraft-like operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
This particular booster first flew in May 2020, launching NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the space station in a historic flight that saw SpaceX carry crew for the first time and also marked\u00a0the first astronaut launch from U.S. soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.<\/p>\n
Its final flight last week involved the deployment of 23 Starlink satellites for SpaceX\u2019s internet-from-space service.<\/p>\n
With SpaceX continuing to\u00a0ramp up its launch frequency, it shouldn\u2019t be long before other Falcon 9 boosters set a new flight record, with two boosters already having flown 17 flights each to date and another two notching up 15 flights each.<\/p>\n
Sending boosters on multiple flights is key to SpaceX\u2019s success, with the system reducing the cost of orbital missions, thereby opening space access to more companies and organizations.<\/p>\n
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