After Sunday’s launch, SpaceX set to take historic reuse milestone

SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink satellites early Sunday morning, and in doing so, took a significant step forward in rocket reuse. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that lifted this payload into orbit, Booster no. 1051, was on its ninth flight. He successfully landed on the Of course i still love you droneship.

Since this is the first Falcon 9 rocket to launch nine missions, that suggests the prospect of a first stage doing a tenth flight in the near future, possibly in a month or two. Achieving ten flights would achieve one of the main goals SpaceX set with the Falcon 9 rocket, having optimized the vehicle for reuse about three years ago.

The company launched its “Block 5” version of the Falcon 9 rocket in May 2018, and since then the vehicle has flown 55 missions, all of which successfully put their payloads into orbit. More importantly, the modifications made by SpaceX engineers to this new rocket to ensure its robustness to reuse, such as the strengthening of its “Octaweb” engine compartment, have been widely validated.

“For those familiar with rockets, this is a ridiculously difficult thing,” SpaceX founder Elon Musk said during a conference call with reporters in 2018 to discuss Block 5 upgrades. has since taken, man, since 2002. Sixteen years of extreme effort and many, many iterations, and thousands of small but important development changes to get to where we think it’s even possible. ” He paused for a second, then added, “Crazy hard.”

At the time, Musk had set two main goals for the Falcon 9 rocket first stage. He wanted to fly each vehicle 10 times before needing major maintenance. And he was hoping to reach the point at which a Falcon 9 rocket could be flipped and relaunched within 24 hours.

SpaceX appears to have made good progress towards the first goal. While the company hasn’t disclosed how much maintenance it brings to the Falcon 9’s early stages between launches, or how often a Merlin engine is replaced, the cores have proven to be reliable and robust. Many of the Falcon 9’s first stages have now flown more than five times.

The company stays away within 24 hours. Although it has reduced the initial inspection and refurbishment time between flights by about six months to the current record of 27 days, it seems likely that SpaceX will not meet its 24-hour lead time target with the Falcon 9. Most likely, the company will take what it has learned from flying and reusing the Falcon 9, and transferring that aspiration for super-fast reuse to the Starship vehicle that SpaceX is currently developing in the south. Texas.

This ability to quickly reuse the Falcon 9 rocket has enabled SpaceX to achieve a high launch rate in recent months with a fleet of less than 10 active boosters. So far, in 2021, the company averages one launch every nine days, a remarkable pace for a large orbital rocket. Another Falcon 9 launch could take place as early as this weekend.

SpaceX’s need to orbit thousands of Starlink Internet satellites – Sunday’s flight was the 21st launch of operational Starlink satellites – is driving the company’s manifesto. Six of the company’s eight launches so far in 2021 have carried 60 Starlink satellites each.

Astronomers have worried about the effect of these satellites on the night sky, and satellite experts are worried about collisions between so many vehicles in low Earth orbit. However, there is no doubt that the engineering required to put so many satellites into orbit so quickly is impressive. Musk noted on Twitter This weekend, SpaceX delivered twice as much payload to orbit in 2020 as the rest of the world combined and could circle the world three or even four times in 2021.

List image by SpaceX