SpaceX has successfully recovered a Falcon 9 booster for the second time ever after five launches and landings of orbital classes and could be just a week or so away from its next record-breaking rocket use.
On the morning of August 10, after a night of waiting at the entrance, tugboats cautiously led drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) and Falcon 9 booster B1051 to SpaceX’s Port Canaveral berths. Just three days before, the booster completed its fifth launch and landing, launching 57 Starlink satellites and two commercial spacecraft en route and ending an unusual six weeks of delays caused by the Starlink-9 mission.
With Starlink-9 – SpaceX’s 13th launch of the year – now safely behind the company, work in earnest can continue on a handful of upcoming launches.
Two days before the arrival of B1051 in Port Canaveral, repair ships GO Ms. Tree and GO Ms. Chief a safe return to port with both Fallink 9’s Starlink 9 loadload fairing halves, fishing from the Atlantic Ocean from a failed capture attempt. While disappointing that SpaceX failed to complete back-to-back catches after the same ships pursued their first simultaneous fairing catch on July 21st. With any luck, SpaceX will be able to replicate some of that unusual success with its next several launches.
Of the two additional launches that SpaceX has planned later this month, both are notable. Launched earlier than (NET) mid-August, SpaceX’s 10th Starlink v1.0 launch – the 11th overall – is thought to be up for grabs, according to well-regarded launch photographer Ben Cooper. If completed without issue, SpaceX will be ~ 70% of the way to a 14-launch milestone, said by COO and President Gwynne Shotwell to mark the point where the company can begin rolling out Starlink Internet services for a broader public beta testing.
Milestones apart from the constellation, NextSpaceflight.com says that SpaceX has assigned Falcon 9 booster B1049 to Starlink-9. That particular red became the first orbital-class liquid rocket booster in history to launch five times and land after orbital-class missions when it helped launch the Starlink V1 L7 cargo on June 4th.
If B1049 flies again in mid-August, the booster will be the first to cross the six-lane milestone just 70-80 days after it became the first to hit the five-landing mark. While impressive, that turnaround would be only the sixth or seventh fastest in SpaceX’s history of impulse use. Still, given that the sixth launch of the B1049 would be a pathfinder mission for Falcon 9 Block 5 reusability, it would be a major messenger of confidence in the design if SpaceX were able to consistently break two booster reuse records with the same Falcon 9 – and therefore do less than three months apart.
To Starlink-9 and on the heels of months of largely coronavirus-related delays, SpaceX’s next mission is likely to be SAOCOM 1B – an Earth observation radar satellite built by Argentine space agency CONAE. Originally planned to launch in early March 30, things did not go exactly according to plan. While there is still a significant chance that the mission will slide further into 2020, SAOCOM 1B and several unrelated rideshare loadloads are currently scheduled to launch NET August. The mission will be Falcon 9 Booster B1059’s fourth launch and could also happen just 70-80 days after its third flight.
Meanwhile, the safe return of B1051 to port and the impending sixth launch debut of B1049 suggest that the former booster could already be ready for its own sixth launch in October, potentially leaving enough time for one or both rockets to hit a seventh milestone before the year is out.
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