SpaceX launches 21 Starlink satellites but loses first stage at landing
SpaceX last night successfully placed 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in the early morning hours.
The first stage however fell over on its drone ship in the Atlantic after landing. This was its 23rd flight, which would have been a record reuse of a Falcon 9 booster had it landed successfully. Because of this failure, SpaceX rescheduled another Starlink launch, delaying it one day until August 30, 2024, as engineers assessed the stage data to determine the cause of the problem. From the video is appears that one leg on the far side, out of sight, either failed to deploy or collapsed after landing.
To be clear, SpaceX anticipates only a one day delay in all its launches because of this issue.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
84 SpaceX
35 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 99 to 53, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 84 to 68.
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SpaceX last night successfully placed 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in the early morning hours.
The first stage however fell over on its drone ship in the Atlantic after landing. This was its 23rd flight, which would have been a record reuse of a Falcon 9 booster had it landed successfully. Because of this failure, SpaceX rescheduled another Starlink launch, delaying it one day until August 30, 2024, as engineers assessed the stage data to determine the cause of the problem. From the video is appears that one leg on the far side, out of sight, either failed to deploy or collapsed after landing.
To be clear, SpaceX anticipates only a one day delay in all its launches because of this issue.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
84 SpaceX
35 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia
American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 99 to 53, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies 84 to 68.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
To be clear, SpaceX anticipates only a one day delay in all its launches because of this issue.
More to the point, it’s what SpaceX will take from this failure, and how it will get even better because of it. As Elon tweeted this morning:
“Now we figure out what went wrong to drive the landing failure rate far above 1 in a thousand, then 1 in 10 thousand … 1 in a milion, etc”
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1828792606446469535
This is how they’ll get to 40 booster reuses. And then, 50 booster reuses.
Darn, their record of 343 landings in a row is broken.
That seems like a tough record to break. Hmm, previous record was just the Space Shuttle with a total of 135 flights.
Someone did the lookup on B1062’s work. During it’s 23 trips it delivered: 2 GPS satellites, 2 Crew Dragons, 2 GEO communication satellites, 40 OneWeb satellites, and 576 Starlink satellites. Totaling to ~313.000 kg of total mass, which is the current record.
@Jay So a couple of Saturn V worth of payload then?
https://x.com/GreeneElizabeth/status/1828769715684307050
By the way, one other note to be made: 23 flights is still the record for any booster in the Falcon 9 fleet, and that is still somewhat short of the Space Shuttle fleet’s record: Discovery holds the record there with 39 flights.
But as for the engines, SpaceX has already beat the Shuttle fleet in that regard. On 23 February 2024, one of the nine Merlin engines powering that launch flew its 22nd mission, which was at the time the flight leading engine. It is already the most flown rocket engine to date, surpassing Space Shuttle Main Engine #2019’s record of 19 flights. This morning, of course, a few engines on B1062 exceeded that mark on their final flight…
I wouldn’t be surprised if within two years, some Merlin 1D has pushed past its 50th reuse.
Richard M: I have been eying those shuttle reuse numbers as well, and am anticipating eagerly the day I can write “this Falcon 9 booster has now flown more flights than any other spacecraft, including any space shuttle.”
Hello Robert,
What a great day that will be.
My guess is…right now there are 2 other Falcon 9 boosters with over 20 uses (B1060 and B1067) and several others in the 15+ range…at current cadences, it is not impossible that one of them could hit the magic #40 by the end of 2025.
At some point, of course, Starship is going to start seriously eating into Falcon 9’s manifest, though, and that will slow the march of more into such rarified territory. But that’s a nice problem to have if you’re SpaceX. The quest will then become to start getting Starship boosters into such veteran status.
It seems that the FAA might require a mishap investigation before the Falcon 9 can resume flights. That would delay both the other Starlink launch and Polaris Dawn.
mkent,
Yep. (Shakes head). https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/28/science/spacex-falcon9-rocket-grounded-polaris-dawn?cid=ios_app
geoffc,
Good one.
@Jay I think I was wrong. It was 267 successful landings in a row, 360+ total.
But I think that is asking how many angels on the head of a pin? 267 wow! Still an amazing record. That is more that almost all but Soyuz and Atlas vehicles make in their entire flight history.