SpaceX is extending the life of its Falcon 9 Ars Technica reusable boosters

The late night liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket with another batch of Starlink Internet satellites on Sunday set a new record for the most flights by a SpaceX launch vehicle, with a first-stage booster flying for the 16th time . SpaceX now aims to fly its reusable Falcon 9 boosters up to 20 times, double the company’s original goal.

The flight followed several months of inspections and refurbishments of SpaceX’s most-flown rocket, a process that included a recertification of the booster to prove, at least on paper, that it could fly five more times after completing its 15th launch and landing. . last December.

The Sunday night mission allowed the boosters to extend life with a good start.

The record-breaking rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 11:58 pm EDT (03:58 UTC) with 22 second-generation Starlink satellites. The rocket’s nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines fired for about two-and-a-half minutes to ascend to the edge of space, then the booster detached to descend toward a landing on one of SpaceX’s landing pads floating to the northeast of the Bahamas.

An upper stage motor fired to continue propelling the Starlink satellites into orbit. SpaceX declared the launch a success following the deployment of Starlink payloads about an hour after liftoff. The company’s global Internet now has about 4,400 satellites in orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist who tracks spaceflight activity.

SpaceX plans to bring thousands more Starlink satellites into orbit over the next few years to increase the capacity of the network, which now has more than 1.5 million subscribers.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, itself about 15 stories tall, landed on the drone ship’s deck less than nine minutes after launch, using thrust from its mid-engine to slow the landing. This year was the 46th launch of SpaceX’s Falcon rocket family, with an average cadence of one flight every four days.

The Falcon 9 first stage has now launched successfully and landed for a record 16th time, said Kate Tice, an engineer at SpaceX who hosts the company’s launch webcast. Today’s landing marks our 206th overall landing of an orbital-class rocket, including the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions.

It was SpaceX’s 216th consecutive successful mission for the Falcon family of rockets, a record unmatched in the history of space launch vehicles.

The booster flown Sunday night, numbered B1058 in SpaceX’s inventory, debuted with the company’s first astronaut launch in May 2020, sending NASA crew members Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to space on the Crew Dragon Demo- 2. That mission ended a nearly nine-year gap in US launches that carried astronauts into orbit.

SpaceX’s fleet-leading booster has now launched 801 spacecraft and payloads, plus two astronauts, in more than three years of service.

This is the second Falcon 9 booster life extension

Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice president for construction and flight reliability, said in May that engineers were in the process of certifying Falcon 9 boosters for up to 20 flights for Starlink missions. Customer satellite launches may be limited to rockets with fewer flights. NASA has only certified reused Falcon 9 boosters with five or fewer flights for agency astronaut missions to the International Space Station.

This gives us a lot of capabilities to keep reusing boosters and keep flying, Gerstenmaier said. I think we’re able to satisfy our manifest, plus some, with the boosters we’ve put in place.

SpaceX’s latest iteration of the Falcon 9 rocket design called the Block 5 first flew in 2018. At the time, SpaceX had a goal to launch each Falcon 9 Block 5 booster 10 times. With the boosters still returning to good condition after each flight, SpaceX has extended the life to 15 launches and landings, according to a report last year in Aviation Week & Space Technology trade journal.

The magazine reported that SpaceX subjected the booster’s components to vibration tests at four times the fatigue life of what they would experience over 15 flights, giving engineers confidence that the rockets will continue to fly successfully.

The company has about 16 tested Falcon boosters in its fleet, with many more newly built rockets expected to fly later this year. Each mission requires a brand new top level. Reusing the first stage and payload fairing not only reduces the company’s internal launch cost figure believed to be less than $30 million per flight of the Falcon 9, but unlocks higher flight speed without putting put a strain on the factory.

SpaceX began the year with a goal of flying 100 missions in 2023, the most flights in a year by any launch service provider. SpaceX has flown 61 times in 2022. The Falcon 9 continues to be the workhorse for the launch industry as SpaceX tests its much larger Starship vehicle, which engineers have designed to eventually be fully reusable with a launch cadence even faster.

But the main limitation of SpaceX’s incredible launch speed is not the availability of ready-to-fly rockets, but the turnaround of the company’s three Falcon 9 launch pads. SpaceX flew out of Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station every five days. The Falcon 9 launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California can be readied for another mission in less than 10 days.

SpaceX’s other fully operational launch site, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, is currently the only pad to support crew and cargo flights to the space station and the only facility designed for the Falcon Heavy rocket . These flights were prioritized at Kennedys Launch Complex 39A and take up to three weeks to reconfigure the pad when alternating between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions.