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The main thruster of the Falcon Heavy rocket launched Thursday from the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida has rocked into rough seas after landing on an offshore drone, SpaceX officials said Monday.
The Falcon Heavy base reinforcement landed about 10 minutes after the Florida Space Coast Falcon Heavy took off, and soon after, the two rocket side thrusters landed at Cape Canaveral Air Force Base.
Target landings marked the first time SpaceX landed on the three Falcon Heavy thrusters for the same mission. The main stage crashed into the sea near the drone after an ignition fluid failure during the inaugural flight of the Falcon Heavy in February 2018.
But the oceanic swell shook the drone ship, which SpaceX named "Of course I still love you," causing the rocket to collapse before rescue teams could secure the ship's backup.
"Over the weekend, because of the rough seas, SpaceX's recovery team has not been able to secure the recall of the center for its return to Port Canaveral," he said. said James Gleeson, spokesperson for SpaceX. "When the conditions worsened with eight to ten feet swells, the booster started to change and was finally unable to stand.
"While we had hoped to bring back the recall intact, the safety of our team always takes precedence," Gleeson said in a statement. "We do not expect future missions to be affected."
The main objective of the launch was to succeed and to bring Arabsat 6A communications into orbit to begin a mission emitting video, radio and Internet signals throughout the Middle East, North Africa. and Europe.
The Falcon Heavy side thrusters and the two halves of the rocket payload fairing have been found intact and will be reused in future missions, SpaceX said.
The system that SpaceX generally uses to secure the drone recall could not be used for the Falcon Heavy mission because it uses a different mechanical interface. But SpaceX intends to use the system in the next attempt to land.
Taking off with more than 5.1 million pounds of thrust, the Falcon Heavy bowed east of the Kennedy Space Center, powered by 27 Merlin main engines – nine on each of the three first-stage rocket propellers.
The Falcon Heavy's main thruster was fired for three and a half minutes on Thursday, accelerating to a speed exceeding 10,700 km / h (6,600 mph) before coming off and giving way to the next floor. the rocket to complete the task of placing the Arabsat 6A communications satellite into orbit.
The twin boosters dropped a minute earlier – at about T + plus 2 minutes 30 seconds – to begin their return trip to Cape Canaveral. The main floor flew at a lower speed to save fuel, then peaked after separating the side boosters.
SpaceX's spacecraft drone was stationed about 990 kilometers east of Cape Canaveral for Thursday's mission, further downstream of the ship's typical position for a SpaceX launch, due to high-speed staging. Falcon Heavy.
Secondary boosters that landed after Thursday's launch will be inspected and refurbished for the upcoming Falcon Heavy flight scheduled for late June, which was already scheduled to use a new booster. The two-part payload fairing will be re-used during a Falcon 9 launch later this year, putting into orbit a batch of Starlink high-speed Internet satellites from SpaceX.
As the core of Falcon Heavy was lost after landing, the number of rocket propulsion units successfully recovered by SpaceX now stands at 37 vehicles – 23 on drones, 13 at Cape Canaveral Air Base and one at Air Force Base. of Vandenberg in California.
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