After several delays, SpaceX’s next release is once again ~ 24 hours and Falcon 9 booster assigned to still You have a chance to break a world record for rocket reuse.
Originally expected to launch in early July, SpaceX’s South Korea ANASIS II military communications satellite fell to July 11, followed by several more delays until July 19. After one last slide (hopefully), ANASIS II is slated to launch no earlier than (NET) 5pm EDT (21:00 UTC) on Monday, July 20.
In a sign that SpaceX’s rocket reuse program continues to progress, the company assigned Falcon 9’s B1058 booster to launch, initially just 45 days after it debuted in support of Crew’s May 30 astronaut launch debut. Dragon.
As previously discussed in Teslarati, a 45-day shift would have crushed a world record of 54 days held by the NASA space shuttle that was established more than three decades ago. While the space shuttle was an orbital vehicle and probably 10-100 times more complex than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster, the workforce it needed to set that response record was closer to 500-1000 times greater than the equipment needed to reuse Falcon 9.
To “reuse” the space shuttles and main engines (SSME, now RS-25) that powered them, NASA and its contractors had to disassemble and reassemble the vehicles, remove and restore the engines and various propulsion units before reinstall them. Up to 4,000 parts would have to be replaced on each launch, while 7,000 of the 50,000 parts of the main engines would also have to be replaced periodically. According to NASA, each Shuttle required at least 750,000 hours of renovation and rework work between flights. According to recent comments by CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX may require only a few dozen employees and 4-6 weeks to change the Falcon 9 booster. That could mean that only 5,000-10,000 hours of work are required for each Falcon 9 reuse, 75-150 times less than Shuttle average.
As of now, the Falcon 9 B1058 booster could still exceed the space shuttle Atlantis’ 54-day record if launched before July 23. A July 20 launch would still break the Shuttle’s record in three days despite approximately three weeks of delays on the ANASIS II mission. Notably, most, if not all, of those delays appear to have been caused by problems encountered in the second stage, new hardware that is worn after each release. Falcon 9 B1058 completed a successful static fire test on July 11, just 42 days after it launched astronauts into orbit and only 38 days after the reinforcement returned to dry land after its first flight.
Hopefully, B1058’s proven potential to break reuse records will mean that SpaceX can quickly change the rocket for future launches, assuming successful landings. For now, SpaceX’s next launch is on track to take off NET 5pm EDT (21:00 UTC) on July 20. In a rarity, SpaceX has a window of almost four hours to launch, leaving plenty of flexibility if the weather or minor technical errors require some additional time. The company’s official webcast will begin approximately 15 minutes before takeoff.
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