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The Booster Falcon 9 that launched four astronauts into orbit last weekend returned Thursday to Florida’s Space Coast aboard a SpaceX drone ship, sailing to Port Canaveral with a lean but otherwise in good shape after apparently he slipped on the deck of the ship in strong winds and rough seas.
Assuming post-flight inspections reveal no major problems, SpaceX aims to reuse the booster to launch the next Crew Dragon mission, scheduled to take off on March 30. It will mark the first mission of the SpaceX crew to fly a reused Falcon 9.
The all-new 15-story-tall booster landed on SpaceX’s drone ship about nine and a half minutes after taking off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Sunday night. Live video from the landing ship appeared to show the first stage of the Falcon 9 – designated B1061 – which was located exactly on the ship’s deck in the Atlantic Ocean more than 300 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of Cape Canaveral.
Falcon 9 boosters perform propulsive landings by re-igniting the rocket’s central motor in a braking maneuver just before landing.
When the rocket arrived in Port Canaveral on Thursday, the booster was tilted and one of its four landing arms appeared to extend beyond the edge of the ship’s deck. Another landing leg was lifted off the deck, while SpaceX’s “Octagrabber” robotic device secured the booster for the return trip to the Florida coast.
SpaceX has routinely piloted Falcon 9 repeaters previously used in commercial satellite missions since 2017 in an effort to cut costs. The company also says reusing boosters makes the Falcon 9 more reliable, but US government customers have been the slowest to sign up for flight missions with previously piloted missile hardware.
The US Space Force earlier this year agreed to start using reused SpaceX repeaters on homeland security launches, and NASA plans to do the same for crew missions starting next year.
The four astronauts that were launched on Sunday from Kennedy Space Center flew on the first rotation flight of the SpaceX operational crew to the International Space Station. The mission, known as Crew-1, followed the first test flight piloted by the Crew Dragon to the space station earlier this year.
NASA and SpaceX have decided to use Crew-1’s launch booster for Crew Dragon’s next flight, known as Crew-2.
While there was no indication that tilting the booster would affect its ability to be reused for the Crew-2 mission, NASA has other options available if needed.
“We have a backup in case something happens at this particular stage, but we’ve done all our inspections on this stage,” said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for human exploration and NASA’s operational mission directorate. “We have done all the work. We understand the hardware. So we’d really like to use it because it makes Crew-2’s job easier. “
One backup booster that SpaceX and NASA could use for the Crew-2 mission is the Falcon 9 booster planned for the launch of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich oceanographic satellite from California, Lueders said. Launch is scheduled for Saturday and the booster will return to a ground landing facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base minutes after takeoff.
“There are a couple of others out there,” Lueders said. “The great thing about SpaceX is that there’s a range of hardware out there that we can use.”
More images of the Falcon 9’s return to Port Canaveral on Thursday are posted below.
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