CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket illuminated the sky early this morning (March 11) as it carried a new group of 60 Starlink Internet satellites into orbit before nailing its landing on a floating platform at sea.
The second stage Falcon 9 booster picked up from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 03:13 EST (0813 GMT). About 8.5 minutes later, the reusable first phase of the rocket returns to Earth for its sixth landing and touches one of SpaceX’s drones. The floating platform, called ‘Just read the instructions’, was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, about 630 kilometers lower.
It was a clear night in Florida for the second attempt of the mission. It was originally planned that the launch would take place on Monday night (March 9), but it was pushed back so that SpaceX could make more preparations. Weather forecasters at the U.S. Space Force’s 45th weather squadron predicted a 90% chance of favorable conditions for launch this morning, and Mother Nature delivered it.
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This latest lift was SpaceX’s seventh mission of 2021 and the company’s 21st 60 satellite launch Starlink. It played one of the most famous first phases of the navy in the navy – B1058.
B1058 is decorated with a now sooty NASA worm logo and is the booster that delivered two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in May last year. Demo-2 mission.
The veteran launcher also delivered a cargo of Dragon spacecraft to the ISS, a communications satellite for South Korea’s army and most satellites ever launched on a single mission (Carrier-1). B1058 today carried its second stack of Starlink satellites.
The spectacle was the 110th overall flight of a Falcon 9 rocket and the 56th reflight of a first phase of Falcon 9. This was the sixth mission for this particular booster, and SpaceX set a new record for the fastest turnaround time for a rocket with so many flights below the knee.
B1058 last flew on 24 January, and this morning, just 45 days later, it flew off from the same launch site again; the previous record for such a veteran booster was 59 days.
SpaceX relies heavily on its fleet of veteran rockets, which has enabled the company to keep up with its launch ambitions. However, SpaceX has always emphasized that while the recovery of aid workers is beneficial, the main goal of each mission is to successfully deliver the payload into space.
The company first repaired a first phase in 2015 when a Falcon 9 booster hit the terra firm at one of the Florida landing blocks. Since then, SpaceX has been trying to better understand the recovery process and how much wear and tear each launch puts on the rocket.
With each recovery effort, the company was able to refine its process and reduce the times between flights. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said its long-term vision includes missiles that look like airplanes, in the sense that they take off briefly, land, refuel and take off again.
Musk, for example, said that SpaceX aims to re-launch, land and then re-launch and land the same rocket again within 24 hours – a milestone that has not yet been reached.
While SpaceX makes landing rockets easy to look at, a recent anomaly shows that it’s not always a slam dunk. On February 15, the company broke a 24-boost recovery lane when a first phase of Falcon 9, B1059, could not land on a drone in the Atlantic after another group of Starlink satellites was launched into orbit.
The crash is attributed to ‘heat damage’, and company officials elaborated on it during a recent teleconference. Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director of human spaceflight, said that one of the booster protection motors did not improve, and this allowed hot gases to leak from the engine in places where it should not, which a engine to switch off during flight. This standstill eventually led to the rocket missing its mark on the drone.
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SpaceX upgraded its Falcon 9 rocket in 2018 and gave the vehicle a range of improvements, including a more robust thermal protection system, titanium grille fins and a more durable intermediate floor to facilitate reuse. The upgrades enabled the rocket to refill several times with few upgrades in between.
The company said that the Falcon 9 we see today is capable of flying a minimum of ten times with little to no overhaul between flights and up to 100 times in total before retirement. But such numbers may not have been set in stone. Rather, these targets may be a guideline that changes as the company refines its refurbishment process.
SpaceX has two amplifiers that are near the milestone for ten missions, which have flown a record eight times, and it is possible that we could see one or both of these two years with double digits. The company has big ambitions for 2021, with the goal of launching a total of 40 missions from the California and Florida launch pads.
This morning’s mission was the 76th SpaceX booster landing to date and the 19th for “Just read the instructions.”
To repair its recurring boosters, SpaceX uses two massive drift landing platforms – “Of course I still like you” and “Just read the instructions” – in addition to its landing pads, which enable the company to steer and land more rockets. Drones usually see the most action, as it takes more fuel reserves to take them back to land than to land.
“Just read the instructions” is the newer of the two ships. The ship was originally stationed in California and was moved to the East Coast in 2020 to help with the increased launch cadences.
SpaceX has been planning a third drone for some time now and it is possible that the ship will serve the West Coast, as the company wants to increase the launch of its facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. There is no expected completion date on the third ship, but a recent opening of a company for a drone repair engineer suggests it may be in the near future.
The expansion of the mega constellation
With the successful lifting this morning, SpaceX has now launched more than 1,200 Starlink satellites into orbit, including some that are no longer in operation. The company planned that its first Starlink constellation would be 1,440 strong, but sought approval for tens of thousands more. There are many more launches as SpaceX fills this growing mega-constellation.
The company has launched its Starlink program with one main goal: to connect the world. For that, SpaceX has designed a fleet of flat-panel broadband satellites that fly across the earth, providing internet coverage to users around the world.
SpaceX has recently started taking pre-orders for its public implementation. Potential users can sign up for the service via a website, pay a deposit and then be notified when coverage is offered in their area.
The launch is on a first-come, first-served basis, while the company is conducting an extensive international and domestic beta testing phase. Prior to this launch, SpaceX deployed service to Germany and New Zealand and is expanding its existing service in the UK.
But that’s not all. Recent filing indicates that the company is seeking permission to expand its services to moving vehicles, including aircraft, boats and RVs. According to Musk, the current Starlink user terminals that facilitate access to the satellites are overhead too big to put in cars, so for now it’s aimed at larger vehicles.
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Parachutes
SpaceX’s dynamic boat duo, GO Ms Tree and GO Ms Chief, are still being dismantled and maintained in Port Canaveral, Florida. As such, SpaceX has deployed two of its Dragon recovery ships, GO Searcher and GO Navigator, to the planned recovery site.
The two boats received upgrades that allowed them to create crops out of the water. The payload screen is a damp piece of hardware designed to protect satellites as their rocket moves through the atmosphere. SpaceX shoulders consist of two halves. At some point after launch, the two pieces fall back and fall back to earth.
Historically, the payload screen was a one-of-a-kind piece of hardware that was thrown into the sea after every mission. But SpaceX has worked to expand its reusability efforts and has been successful in recovering and repairing haircuts.
For this mission, the active envelope (half with the cars that repel it from the rocket) has flown once before, and the passive (or other half) has flown twice before. After being recovered from the ocean, SpaceX inspects and renews each tub.
Next up for SpaceX is another Starlink mission, which could start this weekend. The company is also preparing for its next astronaut mission, Crew-2, which is not expected to launch earlier than April 22 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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