It remains to be seen if either will be recertified to fly additional times, a decision which SpaceX will likely make based upon the needs of its fast-paced mission manifest. And with her sisters B1058-first used to launch “Bob and Doug” in May 2020-and B1060 having both reached a record-tying 15 flights on their most recent launches in mid-December and early January, respectively, their status as active members of the Falcon 9 fleet have been paused as they have now attained the maximum amount of certified flights. In wrapping up the 13th mission of her career, B1061 now sits in joint third place with her near-twin B1062 on the list of SpaceX’s most-flown boosters. After boosting the 230-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 uphill for the opening 2.5 minutes of ascent, B1061 separated cleanly from the stack and pirouetted to a picture-perfect, on-point touchdown on the ASDS deck, some 8.5 minutes after liftoff.ī1061 was making her 13th flight, which places her in joint-third place on the list of most-flown Falcon 9 boosters. Supporting today’s launch was the West Coast-based drone ship, “Of Course I Still Love You”, which put to sea last weekend out of Port of Long Beach, bound for a recovery position some 390 miles (630 kilometers) offshore in the Pacific Ocean. Causes ranged from hard impacts to excessive lateral velocities on final approach to the ASDS and from problems with latches in the Falcon 9’s landing legs to propellant shortfalls during the Landing Burn. Since January 2015, and including this morning’s launch, SpaceX has now made 155 tries to land Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy hardware on ocean-going Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships (ASDS), with ten outright failures, most recently the February 2021 loss of B1059.
Without further ado, the many-times-used booster sprang from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-4E on Thursday morning to begin SpaceX’s eighth Vandenberg flight of 2023, a record-setting third Falcon 9 mission of the month from the West Coast and B1061’s own second outing of the year.Īfter a day-long delay, B1061 roars through the fog for SpaceX’s third launch from Vandenberg in April. The veteran B1061 core-which previously flew 12 times between November 2020 and last month-was seemingly stricken with cruel luck yesterday as she aimed for her 13th launch and 2023’s 13th batch of Starlink low-orbiting internet communications satellites.Ĭiting a “probability of landing failure” as the cause of Wednesday’s scrub, without further elaboration, SpaceX oddly tweeted only a few minutes afterward that “vehicle is healthy” and that it was aiming at a backup launch attempt at 6:40 a.m. Photo Credit: SpaceXĪfter a dramatic scrub at T-16 seconds on Wednesday morning, SpaceX successfully launched its third Falcon 9 mission of April out of Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., early Thursday. SpaceX has now flown five Falcon 9 missions so far in April, with attention now turning to the Space Coast for Thursday evening’s return of the Falcon Heavy.
0 kommentar(er)
