Record-setting Falcon 9 1st stage booster lost after landing
The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster that launched on December 23, 2023 for a record-setting nineteenth time was damaged beyond repair when, after landing on its drone ship successfully, experienced rough seas that caused it to fall over.
The picture at the link shows the crushed booster on its side on the drone ship. SpaceX noted the spectacular history of this booster in a separate tweet:
This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit 2 astronauts and more than 860 satellites — totaling 260+ metric tons — in ~3.5 years.
In a sense, it actually put more mass into orbit that a Saturn 5 rocket, for significant less money though over a much longer period of time.
For SpaceX the loss of this booster is hardly a set back, because it has several other boosters with only a few less total launches in its fleet. Expect one to exceed twenty launches in the near future.
Hat tip to out stringer Jay as well as several readers.
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The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster that launched on December 23, 2023 for a record-setting nineteenth time was damaged beyond repair when, after landing on its drone ship successfully, experienced rough seas that caused it to fall over.
The picture at the link shows the crushed booster on its side on the drone ship. SpaceX noted the spectacular history of this booster in a separate tweet:
This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit 2 astronauts and more than 860 satellites — totaling 260+ metric tons — in ~3.5 years.
In a sense, it actually put more mass into orbit that a Saturn 5 rocket, for significant less money though over a much longer period of time.
For SpaceX the loss of this booster is hardly a set back, because it has several other boosters with only a few less total launches in its fleet. Expect one to exceed twenty launches in the near future.
Hat tip to out stringer Jay as well as several readers.
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.
Oh boy, I bet SpaceX is going to be hit with the mother of all environmental fines for destroying mother ocean.
“but other rocket companies dump their stages into the ocean every launch”.
“Pay us”.
NASASpaxceFlight has some good photos of the damage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcgW7cOOoM8 (11 minutes)
The second half of the video is a memorial to the booster. A memorial for a booster? I am a bit concerned that there is too much emotion for SpaceX hardware. It is not as though this was a booster that would have been slated to go to the Smithsonian or to anyone’s rocket garden. It may have the most flights so far, but no matter how many flights it was going to accomplish, it would most likely be quickly outshone by other boosters. Plural.
This is newsworthy, yes, but not memorial-worthy.
I’d like to see a cluster of Falcons as one bigstage—looking like Saturn I….in place of SuperHeavy
It might keep slosh down.
Before Starship started to take shape, Elon said that making a 5-core Falcon Heavy wouldn’t be too hard, since the hard work had already been done for the current 3-core version.
Five cores…45 Merlin-D engines, you are right they would have to call it the Falcon-9 Super Heavy. I bet it could put a mass just short of 100 tonnes into LEO. That would be a site.
I wonder if they will salvage all they can out of the rocket?