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The booster used on Tuesday had already been used five times.
SpaceX
SpaceX sent another batch of Starlink broadband satellites en route to orbit of Florida on Tuesday, with a few Earth observation metal birds, and made history again.
The Falcon 9 booster that Elon Musk’s space company used for carpooling had previously flown on three Starlink missions and two commercial satellite delivery gigs. That means her flight this week was her sixth, a brand new one for a single orbital rocket.
“Some big steps to come,” Musk said on Twitter Sunday, in reference to the booster’s sixth flight (serial number B-1049) and SpaceX’s 100th mission in the company’s history.
The Falcon 9’s first stage actually set two records on the same day, launching for the sixth time first and then landing for the sixth time shortly thereafter.
The launch went as planned Tuesday morning at 7:31 a.m. PT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base, and the thruster landed about nine minutes later on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the ocean. Atlantic.
In addition to the historic launch and landing, SpaceX managed to grab half of the nose cone that protected the 58 Starlink satellites and three satellites owned by earth-imaging company Planet as they passed through the atmosphere. Half of the fairing was hung using a large vessel fitted with a net, as shown in the video below. The other half would have landed nearby in the water.
This pair of fairings is also experienced in flight, having been used and recovered during a previous Starlink mission. SpaceX comes from recently perfected his method to salvage those components, and we’ll see if he can eventually make a habit of it and continue to expand his recycling program.
Although officially named Starlink 10, it was actually the 11th launch of a batch of Starlink satellites, after the most recent previous mission on August 7. The next one after this week’s is scheduled for September and will be preceded by the launch of the Falcon 9 at the end of August from an Argentinian satellite initially scheduled for take-off in 2019.
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