![]() ![]() It remains to be seen how many “new” boosters are currently waiting in the wings for their maiden voyages, but SpaceX’s ambitious 2020 manifest of 26 missions was completed using just 11 Falcon 9 cores, three of which have now been lost whilst another was intentionally destroyed in the Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk blamed the failure on one of the Falcon 9’s grid fins, which are used to steer the booster to its intended landing target. That saw her lift two Dragon cargo ships on the first leg of their respective voyages to the International Space Station (ISS) in December 2019 and March 2020, two Starlink batches-totaling 118 satellites-in June 2020 and on Monday night, Argentina’s SAOCOM-1B Earth-imaging sentinel last August and the highly secretive NROL-108 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, just before Christmas. Since the Amos-6 failure during its static fire test, SpaceX has completed a record-setting run of 111 successful Falcon 9 missions in a row. ![]() The loss of a frequent-flying member of the SpaceX fleet is certainly unfortunate, with B1059 having pulled a lot of duty over the course of the last year, logging six missions in 14 months. 508 14K views 2 years ago On 16 February 2021, Falcon 9’s first stage (B1059) failed to land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The primary payload for Monday’s mission, a 60-strong “stack” of Starlink low-orbiting internet communications satellites, was successfully deployed. Since the Amos-6 failure during its static fire test, SpaceX has completed a record-setting run of 111 successful Falcon 9 missions in a row. “It does look like we did not land our booster” came the disappointed update a few seconds later. A “little bright glow”, according to the SpaceX commentator, was visible just off-screen and a handful of seagulls took flight in terror from the ASDS deck as they were granted a window-seat to B1059’s final death-throes. Monday’s drone ship coverage, which ironically included a remarkably continuous video feed with no interruptions, indicated that the landing “burn” of B1059’s Merlin 1D+ engines got underway as scheduled. ![]() The previous record was an unbroken run of 18 successful landings between July 2016 and January 2018. Photo Credit: SpaceXįollowing the most recent failed landing, an impressive unbroken run of 24 successes-21 drone ship “slam-dunks” and three solid-ground touchdowns-followed, most recently the safe return of reusability turnaround record-holder B1060 earlier this month. On February 27th, 2023, almost exactly two years after that failure, Falcon 9 booster B1076 touched down. B1059’s Merlins flare as it commences its ultimately ill-fated descent toward the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS), “Of Course I Still Love You”. However, every landing since Falcon 9’s Starlink-19 landing failure has been successful. ![]()
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