Falcon 9 booster sets reuse record on its 5th birthday
▼ Summary
– Falcon 9 booster B1067 completed its 35th mission on Monday, launching 29 Starlink satellites and landing on a drone ship, retaining its title as SpaceX’s fleet leader.
– This booster debuted over five years ago with a Cargo Dragon flight and has since mostly flown Starlink missions, sometimes twice in a month.
– The successful launch brings SpaceX closer to its stated goal of qualifying Falcon 9 boosters for 40 missions, with potential plans to exceed that number.
– Falcon 9 flights are now routine, launching multiple times a week, making milestones like the 35th launch seem unremarkable.
– Despite being taken for granted, the Falcon 9 rocket is the foundation of SpaceX’s success and a key driver of the company’s valuation.
Just over five years ago, a gleaming white Falcon 9 rocket lifted off for the first time, carrying a Cargo Dragon spacecraft toward the International Space Station. In the following year, that same first stage went on to launch two crewed astronaut missions and several commercial payloads.
Since then, however, the booster known as B1067 has largely settled into a routine of flying Starlink missions. It has launched them in rapid succession, each time returning safely to a drone ship for refurbishment before taking flight again. On more than one occasion, it has completed two missions within a single month.
On Monday morning, B1067 returned to the skies once more, launching 29 Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit from Florida. After touching down on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship in the Atlantic, the vehicle completed its 35th mission overall, cementing its status as the fleet leader for SpaceX.
Is the target 40 missions, or will the bar be raised yet again?
This latest successful launch moves SpaceX closer to its most recently stated objective: certifying its Falcon 9 first-stage boosters for up to 40 missions each. That goal was outlined more than two years ago, and given the company’s continued safe operation of its experienced boosters across dozens of flights, it seems plausible that SpaceX intends to push well beyond the 40-mission mark.
It is easy to take the Falcon 9 rocket for granted. It now launches so frequently,sometimes several times a week,that each flight has become a routine, almost unremarkable event. Even a milestone like a 35th launch and landing, bringing it closer to the space shuttle Discovery’s record of 39 spaceflights over nearly four decades, barely registers as news.
But the reality is that the Falcon 9 remains the bedrock of SpaceX’s success. Regardless of one’s views on the company’s impending IPO,whether it is seen as a financial gamble or a long-awaited chance for investors to own a piece of SpaceX,its valuation is overwhelmingly driven by the capabilities of the Falcon 9 vehicle.
(Source: Ars Technica)
