The SpaceX Falcon 9 booster spotted in Southern California during a trip to Florida

On August 20, a member of a local Facebook group in California discovered a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster in transit, an extremely rare sight lately. Moving eastward, the thruster will almost certainly move to Florida to support a large group of 6 to 8 launches in Q4 2019.

This is the first time in nearly four months that a reminder of the proven Falcon 9 in flight has been spotted in transit, with the exception of an isolated booster (not flown over ) captured en route to McGregor, Texas, last month. It is also an opportunity to re-examine the state of SpaceX's vast fleet of replaceable Falcon 9 Block 5 rockets as the company prepares for the end of 2019 in the midst of a rare lull in launch activities.

Depending on the timing, location (Southern California) and direction (eastbound), the August 20 rocket is almost certainly a reminder of the B1051 dual flight Falcon 9. This recall was to leave SpaceX's Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) launch facilities after approximately two months of inspections and refits, and completed its second launch and landing on June 12, 2019 in support of the Radarsat mission. Constellation (RCM).

Prior to the successful launch of the RCM, B1051 had the historic privilege of supporting the inaugural orbital launch of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, testing the next generation's crew capsule, before 39; a crewed launch does not occur at all until (NET) December 2019. Known as DM-1 (Demo-1), B1051 has been subjected to a series of inspections, analyzes and tests particularly hard for the mission – the first static welding sparks and the devastating fires of the McGregor, TX and Florida booster. start its debut.

These beginnings took place on March 2, 2019, after which B1051 landed at sea aboard the drone ship Of Course I still love you (OCISLY).

SpaceX's production experienced a particularly frenetic period from early 2018 to mid-2019, during which time the company averaged the completion of almost all of a Falcon 9 or Heavy rocket every 1 to 2 months, building, delivering, launching and relaunching Falcon B1046 boosters via B1057 from ~ January 2018 to April 2019. Over the past 3-4 months, rocket production rate (visible to the public) has slowed significantly , probably as a result of a deliberate slowdown caused by the rapid growth of SpaceX's fleet of proven boosters.

In the past four months or so, unaffiliated observers have spotted a total of a new Falcon 9 booster between the SpaceX plant in Hawthorne, California, and its testing facility in McGregor, Texas. This recall – probably the B1058 for Crew Dragon crew launch debut (Demo-2) or the B1059 for the upcoming SpaceX USAF GPS launch – was spotted twice to the east. in Arizona on July 29th. Previously, the most recent "basic last observations" took place between mid-April and the end of April, while the most recent since July 29 is B1051.2, August 20. In short, things are exceptionally quiet on the front of the SpaceX reminder transport.

Logistics of the rocket fleet

This apparent slowdown in production can be explained relatively easily by the nature of SpaceX's activities. fleet boosters, as well as the growing confidence of the company in the extreme reusability nominally allowed by the upgrade of Falcon 9 Block 5. Just a few days ago, Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of SpaceX for the reliability of building and flight systems, reiterated his belief that the boosters of the Falcon 9 Block 5 would be more than capable of safely performing 10 or more launches.

Currently, SpaceX's Block 5 fleet of boosters is comprised of seven people, consisting of B1046.3, B1048.3, B1049.3, B1051.2, B1052.2, B1053.2, B1056.2. . In total, they supported 17 full launches in 15 months, averaging 2.4 launches each, with up to three launches from three separate boosters. In the extremely conservative assumption that 60 to 90 days are required for post-flight inspections and revisions, between 2 and 6 of these boosters are already ready for their next launch.

In simple terms, it seems that even a fleet as small as seven Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters can support a large majority of SpaceX commercial launch contracts, while even NASA has come to support the launch of unprepared Cargo Dragon missions on proven boosters in flight. In fact, Koenigsmann revealed that a number of customers were almost 180 degrees in less than three years that SpaceX was reloading boosters. Many now active prefer a proven booster in flight and have come to consider them as a more known quantity compared to unproven material (that is, new).

Besides a handful of customers – primarily the US military – who explicitly request new hardware, the rare need for fully consumable Falcon 9 launches and the equally rare loss of boosters during unsuccessful landings, SpaceX n & # 39 simply does not need Falcon 9 or Heavy recall production rates to support identical (or even higher) launch rates.

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