"Just Read the Instructions", "Of Course I Still Love You", and "A Shortfall of Gravitas" redirect here. For the fictional spaceships created by Iain M. Banks, see Culture series.
Autonomous spaceport drone ship
Of Course I Still Love You carries the first first stage to successfully land on a drone ship (Falcon 9 Full Thrust, SpaceX CRS-8, 8 April 2016).
An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is an ocean-going vessel derived from a deck barge, outfitted with station-keeping engines and a large landing platform, and is autonomously positioned when on station for a landing. Construction of the drone ships was commissioned by aerospace company SpaceX to allow recovery of launch vehicleboosters at sea for missions that do not carry sufficient fuel to return to the launch site after boosting spacecraft onto an orbital or interplanetary trajectory.[1][2]
SpaceX offers three options, depending on launch requirements: landing on land, landing at sea, or expending the first stage; in order of increased performance and cost. Any Falcon flights launched into geostationary orbit or exceeding escape velocity require landing at sea, or expending the first stage.[5] Less demanding launches from Florida can return to Landing Zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, while less demanding launches from California can return to Landing Zone 4. Around three quarters of recovered Falcon boosters land at sea as of 2022[update].[6]
History
In 2009, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk articulated ambitions for "creating a paradigm shift in the traditional approach for reusing rocket hardware".[7] In October 2014, SpaceX announced that they had contracted with a Louisianashipyard to build a floating landing platform for reusableorbitallaunch vehicles. Early information indicated that the platform would carry an approximately 90m ×50m (300ft ×160ft) landing pad and would be capable of precision positioning so that the platform could hold its position for launch vehicle landing.[8][9] On 22 November 2014, Musk released a photograph of the "autonomous spaceport drone ship" along with additional details of its construction and size.[7][10]
As of December 2014, the first drone ship used, the McDonough Marine Service's Marmac300 barge, was based in Jacksonville, Florida, at the northern tip of the JAXPORT Cruise Terminal, where SpaceX built a stand to secure the Falcon stage during post-landing operations. The stand consisted of four 6,800kg (15,000lb), 270cm (110in) tall and 244.5cm (96.3in) wide pedestal structures bolted to a concrete base. A mobile crane would have lifted the stage from the ship and placed it on the stand. Tasks such as removing or folding back the landing legs prior to placing the stage in a horizontal position for trucking would have been undertaken while the booster was on the stand.[11]
SpaceX's Just Read the Instructions, based on the Marmac300 deck barge, in position for a landing test on Falcon 9 Flight 17 in April 2015.
On 23 January 2015, during repairs to the ship following the unsuccessful first test, Musk announced that the ship was to be named Just Read the Instructions,[13] with a sister ship planned for West Coast launches to be named Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY).[14] On 29 January 2015, SpaceX released a manipulated photo of the ship with the name illustrating how it would look once painted.[15]
The first Just Read the Instructions was retired in May 2015 after approximately six months of service in the Atlantic Ocean, and its duties were assumed by Of Course I Still Love You.[16] The former ASDS was modified by removing the wing extensions that had extended the barge surface and the equipment (thrusters, cameras, and communications gear) that had been added to refit it as an ASDS; these items were saved for future reuse.[16]
In 2018, Elon Musk announced plans for an additional barge, A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), to support East Coast operations[17] but the build of the droneship was delayed, and instead JRTI was moved to the East Coast and began operations in June 2020.[citation needed]ASOG was completed in July 2021.[18]
By June 2020, SpaceX had received the ability to use "its own private Automatic Identification System (AIS) aids to navigation (ATON) to mark the temporary exclusion areas it uses during rocket launches [from] Cape Canaveral, Florida", the first such use of dynamic restricted area ever approved by the U.S. Coast Guard.[19]
Fleet
Ship Name
Base
Status
Just Read The Instructions (I)
Port Canaveral
Scrapped
Of Course I Still Love You
Long Beach
In Use
Just Read The Instructions (II)
Port Canaveral
In Use
A Shortfall of Gravitas
Port Canaveral
In Use
Since early 2016, SpaceX has operated two leased deck barges — Marmac303 and Marmac304 – which have been converted to become autonomous-operation-capable ASDS ships. These constituted the active ASDS fleet until July 2021, when A Shortfall of Gravitas – Marmac302 – joined the fleet.
Just Read the Instructions (I)
SpaceX's first launch vehicle landing barge was named Just Read the Instructions (JRTI). Built by modifying an existing barge, the Marmac300, it was scrapped after the SpaceX CRS-6 landing failure on 14 April 2015.[20]
Of Course I Still Love You
SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You, based on the Marmac304 ocean-going barge
The second ASDS barge, Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), had been under construction in a Louisiana shipyard since early 2015 using a different hull – Marmac304 – in order to service launches on the East Coast of the United States. It was converted as a replacement for the first Just Read the Instructions and entered operational service for Falcon 9 Flight 19 in late June 2015. As of June 2015, its home port was Port of Jacksonville, Florida,[14][16] but after December 2015, it was transferred 260km (160mi) further south, at Port Canaveral.
While the dimensions of the ship are nearly identical to the first ASDS, several enhancements were made including a steel blast wall erected between the aft containers and the landing deck. The ship was in place for a first-stage landing test on the SpaceX CRS-7 mission, which failed on launch on 28 June 2015.[16]
On 8 April 2016, the first stage, which launched the DragonSpaceX CRS-8 spacecraft, successfully landed for the first time ever on OCISLY, which is also the first ever drone ship landing.[21]
In February 2018, the central core of Falcon Heavy Test Flight exploded near OCISLY, which damaged two of the four thrusters on the drone ship.[22] Two thrusters were removed from the Marmac303 barge in order to repair OCISLY.[23]
On 30 May 2020, the first stage of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission landed on OCISLY, with the Crew Demo-2 mission marking both the first launch of American astronauts, from American soil, on an American launch vehicle since the final flight of the Space Shuttle (STS-135) in 2011, and the first launch of astronauts aboard a SpaceX launch vehicle.[24][25] This marked the first time in history that the first stage of a rocket launched a crew into space and then landed itself safely.[citation needed]
The third ASDS barge was named Just Read The Instructions, using the Marmac303 barge hull. It was converted during 2015 in a Louisiana shipyard. When the refit as an ASDS was complete, the barge transited the Panama Canal in June 2015, carrying its wing extensions – the same ones originally built for the first ASDS built, JRTI on Marmac330) – as cargo on the deck because the ASDS, when complete, would be too wide to pass through the canal.[16][14] The ship underwent a major refit in September 2019 to May 2020, first in Louisiana, and finished at Port Canaveral, including four new, much larger, positioning thrusters.
The home port for the Marmac 303 was initially the Port of Los Angeles (until in August 2019) at the Altana Sea marine research and business campus in San Pedro, California's outer harbor.[30] The landing platform and tender vessels began docking there in July 2015 in advance of the main construction of the AltaSea facilities.[31][32]
SpaceX announced that the Marmac 303 would be the second ASDS to be named Just Read the Instructions in January 2016, shortly before its first use as a landing platform for Falcon 9 Flight 21.[33]
On 17 January 2016, JRTI was put to first use in an attempt to recover a Falcon9 first-stage booster from the Jason-3 mission from Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 4.[16] The booster successfully landed on the deck; however, a lockout collet failed to engage on one of the legs, causing the first stage to tip over, exploding on impact with the deck.[34] On 14 January 2017, SpaceX launched Falcon 9 flight 29 from Vandenberg Air Force Base and landed the first stage on the JRTI, which was located about 370km (230mi) downrange in the Pacific Ocean, making it the first successful landing in the Pacific.[35]
JRTI is based at Port Canaveral and began operations in the Atlantic in June 2020, supporting the first time a Falcon9 would land after a 5th use.[citation needed]
A Shortfall of Gravitas
A fourth ASDS, A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), was announced in February 2018 and was originally planned to enter service in mid-2019.[38][39] It was made by modifying Marmac302. In October 2020, Elon Musk re-affirmed plans to build a ship of this name.[40] In January 2021, Marmac302 was spotted at Bollinger Fourchon site.[41] On 6 April 2021, NASASpaceFlight.com spotted the Octagrabber presumed to be for A Shortfall of Gravitas at the Cidco Road facility in Cocoa Beach, Florida. It may have originated as an upgraded Octagrabber for Just Read The Instructions.[42] By mid April 2021, Marmac302 had scaffolding to prepare for construction, which was confirmed on 9May 2021.[43] It joined the East Coast fleet in July, after sending OCISLY[44] to the West Coast in July 2021.[41]
On 9 July 2021, Elon Musk tweeted aerial footage of the completed drone ship in the Gulf of Mexico while undergoing its first sea-trials. According to him, this drone ship will not require a tug boat to be towed to the landing area. ASOG is used to support rocket launches from a base at Port Canaveral.[18] After completing a sea trial in Port Fourchon, transiting over the Gulf of Mexico while being towed by Finn Falgout from its construction port, Port Fourchon to its recovery base, Port Canaveral, arriving at 16:47UTC on 15July 2021, and completing a number of sea trials, it successfully completed its first booster landing attempt for a Falcon9 first-stage booster B1061.4 being used in CRS-23 mission at 300km downrange in the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the first ASDS to land a first stage booster in its maiden landing attempt.[45][46][47]
ASOG is based at Port Canaveral to support east coast recovery operations.
The azimuth thrusters are hydraulic propulsion outdrive units with modular diesel-hydraulic-drive power units manufactured by Thrustmaster, a marine equipment manufacturer in Texas.[7] The returning first stage must not only land within the confines of the deck surface, but must also deal with ocean swells and GPS errors.[7][53]
SpaceX equips the ships with a variety of sensor and measurement technology to gather data on the booster returns and landing attempts, including commercial off the shelfGoPro cameras.[54]
At the center of the ASDS landing pads is a circle that encloses the SpaceX stylized "X" in an X-marks-the-spot landing point.[55]
The landing platform of the upper deck of the first barge named Just Read the Instructions was 170ft ×300ft (52m ×91m), while the span of the Falcon 9 v1.1landing legs was 60ft (18m).[7][53]
Of Course I Still Love You (Marmac 304)
Side view of OCISLY docked in March 2017
Of Course I Still Love You is registered as 1247500 was built as a refit of the barge Marmac304 for landings in the Atlantic Ocean. Its homeport was Port Canaveral, Florida, from December 2015 to June 2021, after being ported for a year at the Port of Jacksonville during most of 2015. Of Course I Still Love You worked successfully as a landing platform after the Falcon9 rocket brought astronauts to space on the crewed mission Demo-2 on 30May 2020.[citation needed] In June 2021, OCISLY was transported to the Port of Long Beach to begin supporting launches on the west coast.[28] On 8July 2021, OCISLY was docked in Long Beach after transiting the Panama Canal.
Just Read the Instructions (Marmac 303)
Falcon 9 landed on JRTI post Iridium-2 mission
Just Read the Instructions, the second barge with that name, is registered as 1245062 with MMSI 368219920, and was built as a refit of the barge Marmac303 in 2015 for landings in the Pacific Ocean. Its homeport was in the Port of Los Angeles, California from 2015 to 2019[58] but in August 2019 it was moved to the Gulf of Mexico.[36] After undergoing upgrades and refurbishment, in December 2019 it was moved to Cape Canaveral.[59] After several months of additional work, including installation of new thrusters, Just Read the Instructions went back into service in June 2020 with booster recovery from Starlink v1.0 L7 mission.[60]
The fourth ASDS, named A Shortfall of Gravitas,[61] is registered as 1240683 with MMSI 368219910 and was mentioned by SpaceX in February 2018[citation needed] and again in October 2020 to help support East Coast launches.[40] In May 2021, conversion of Marmac302 into ASOG began and was expected to move to the East Coast for operation in the following months.[62]A Shortfall of Gravitas underwent its first sea trials on 9July 2021, and a short video of the ship underway was shared on Twitter by Elon Musk.[18] After completing the sea trials, it was towed by Finn Falgout from its construction port, Port Fourchon, to its recovery base, Port Canaveral, arriving 15July 2021.[63][64][65]
Operation
A tug is used to bring the ASDS to its oceanic position, and a support ship stands by some distance away from the crewless ASDS. The vessels initially used on the East Coast were Elsbeth III (tug) and GO Quest (support).[66] Following landing, technicians and engineers typically board the landing platform and secure the rocket's landing legs to lock the vehicle in place for transport back to port.[4] The first stage is secured to the deck of the drone ship with steel hold-downs welded on to the feet of the landing legs.[67] In June 2017, OCISLY started being deployed with a robot that drives under the rocket and grabs onto the hold-down clamps located on the outside of the Falcon9's structure after landing.[68] Fans call the robot "Optimus Prime" or "Roomba", the latter of which has been turned into a backronym for "remotely operated orientation and mass balance adjustment".
Starting with the A Shortfall of Gravitas and Just Read The Instructions after it, these drone ships will not need to use a tug to bring the ASDS to the Falcon9 landing zone, as they will now be fully autonomous. Later, A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship became the first ASDS that has an Automatic identification system (AIS) tracker,[69] followed by another AIS tracker for Just Read The Instructions.[70] This helps to track its voyage during recovery operations and especially when it becomes a fully autonomous droneship.
Vessel missions
The first flight test was 10 January 2015,[71] when SpaceX conducted a controlled-descentflight test to land the first stage of Falcon 9 Flight 14 after it helped to loft a contracted payload into Earth orbit.[8][9] Before the first landing attempt, SpaceX estimated that the likelihood of a successful landing on the platform would be 50% or less.[7][9] The landings went from being landing tests to become routine parts of missions.
SpaceX attempted a landing during SpaceX CRS-5 on Just Read the Instructions on 10 January 2015. Many of the test objectives were achieved, including precision control of the rocket's descent to land on the platform at a specific point in the North Atlantic Ocean and a large amount of test data was obtained from the first use of grid fin control surfaces used for more precise reentry positioning. However, the landing was a hard landing.[72] The SpaceX webcast indicated that the boostback burn and reentry burns for the descending first-stage occurred, and that the descending rocket then went "below the horizon", as expected, which eliminated the live telemetry signal. Shortly thereafter, SpaceX released information that the launch vehicle did get to the drone spaceport ship as planned, but "landed hard ... Ship itself is fine. Some of the support equipment on the deck will need to be replaced".[72][73]
Just Read the Instructions was towed to sea for the Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite launch on 11 February 2015 but, it was not used for a landing attempt. Ocean conditions of 7m (23ft)-high waves interfered with the ASDS recovery duties for the landing, so the ship returned to port and no landing test occurred. SpaceX executed a soft landing in the sea to continue data gathering for future landing attempts. The soft landing was successful, Elon Musk tweeted that it landed with a lateral accuracy of 10m (33ft) away from the target and in a vertical position.[74]
On 14 April 2015, SpaceX made a second attempt during SpaceX CRS-6 to land a Falcon first-stage on the Marmac 300 drone ship Just Read the Instructions. News from Elon Musk suggested that it made a hard landing.[75] He later clarified that it appeared to have made a vertical landing on the ship, but then toppled over due to excessive remaining lateral momentum.[76]
In order to prepare for SpaceX CRS-7 on 28 June 2015, the then new ASDS, Of Course I Still Love You, was towed out to sea to prepare for a third landing test. This was its first operational assignment.[16] However, the Falcon launch vehicle disintegrated before first stage shutdown so the mission never progressed to the point where the controlled-descent test could happen.[77]
In January 2016, SpaceX indicated that there would be an attempt to land on the then new ASDS, reusing the name Just Read the Instructions (JRTI), located on the West Coast following the launch of Falcon 9 flight 21 scheduled for 17 January 2016.[78]JRTI was located about 320km (200mi) downrange from the launch site in the Pacific Ocean. Musk reported that the first stage did successfully soft-land on the ship, but a lockout latch on one of the landing legs failed to latch and the first stage fell over, causing a breach of the propellant tanks and a deflagration on impact with the drone ship.[79][80][81][82][83]
During a launch of a heavy communications satellite on Falcon 9 flight 22 on 4 March 2016, SpaceX performed an experimental descent and landing attempt with very low propellant margins. For the first time, and in order to reduce the propellant required, SpaceX attempted the landing burn with three engines. SpaceX had indicated that the test was unlikely to result in a successful landing and recovery. In the event, one engine flamed out early, and the first stage hit Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY)'s deck surface with considerable velocity, destroying the first stage and causing damage to the drone ship's deck.[84] By 21 March 2016, the deck of the drone ship was nearly repaired.[85]
The Falcon 9 first-stage performed a successful landing on OCISLY in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida at T+9 minutes and 10 seconds after liftoff of SpaceX CRS-8,[86] the first-ever successful landing of a first stage on an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship.[87] The first stage was successfully affixed to the barge for the maritime transport portion of the journey back to port, and successfully completed its journey, entering Port Canaveral early in the morning on 12 April 2016.[87]
Success
The first time that the first stage of a Falcon 9 landed on a drone ship.
SpaceX landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 on OCISLY during the JCSat-14 mission on 6 May 2016, its second time successfully landing on a drone ship at sea, and its first time recovering a booster from a high-velocity (GTO) mission.[88]
SpaceX failed to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 on OCISLY during the Asia Broadcast Satellite / Eutelsat mission.[90] Elon Musk tweeted that one of the three engines had low thrust, and when the rocket was just off the deck, the engines ran out of oxidizer.[91]
Falcon 9's 28th flight propelled the Japanese JCSAT-16 communications satellite to a geostationary transfer orbit on 14 August 2016. The first stage re-entered the atmosphere and during the night landed vertically on OCISLY, positioned in the Atlantic Ocean nearly 400 miles from the Florida coastline; unlike previous successful landings, this landing-burn only used one engine, not three.[92]
The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the Pacific Ocean ASDS JRTI during the Iridium NEXT-1 mission.[93][94] This marked the first successful landing on JRTI and the first landing in the Pacific Ocean.[58][95]
The Falcon 9 first stage landed on OCISLY during the SES-10 launch. This was the first successful launch and landing of a previously flown orbital booster.
The Falcon 9 first stage landed on OCISLY during the BulgariaSat-1 launch. This was the second successful launch and landing of a previously flown orbital booster. This was also the first booster to have landed on both active drone ships. While the landing was considered a success, the booster was "slammed sideways" and suffered a 'hard landing' which resulted in 'most of the emergency crush core being used'.
On 6 February 2018, the central core from the Falcon Heavy Test Flight attempted a landing on OCISLY. There was not enough TEA-TEB igniter remaining and only the centermost of the three engines required ignited during the landing burn. The core hit the water near the drone ship at over 300mph and was destroyed. The explosion of the central core upon impact also damaged two of the thrusters on the drone ship. The side boosters successfully landed at Landing Zones 1 and 2. The loss of the central core did not impact SpaceX operations since it was from an older generation of the Falcon 9 not intended to be reused.[22]
On 6 March 2018, a Falcon 9 Full Thrust carrying the Hispasat 30W-6 communications satellite for Hispasat of Spain was originally supposed to attempt a landing, as the first stage was programmed to do the landing. However, due to sea conditions considered to be unfavorable, the drone ship was left at the port. The first stage did its pre-programmed maneuvers, but did not attempt to land.[98]
The Falcon 9 Block 5 first stage landed on OCISLY during the Bangabandhu-1 mission and was the first flight of a Block 5 booster and upper stage. It was the overall 25th successful recovery of a booster.
Falcon Heavy block 5 first stage's center booster B1055.1 landed on OCISLY. This was the first successful landing of a center booster used in a Falcon Heavy rocket. The side boosters also landed on their respective ground pads.[101] However, the recovery team was unable to secure the center booster onto the drone ship due to rough seas and the core was lost at sea.[102] SpaceX thus successfully executed furthest downrange landing of a Falcon Heavy or any Falcon booster on this mission.
Falcon 9 first stage B1056.1 landed on OCISLY during the SpaceX CRS-17 mission. The landing was originally scheduled for Landing Zone 1, but was switched after an explosion in a test of a Crew Dragon capsule at LZ1.[103] The launch of CRS-17 was delayed due to generator issues on the drone ship.[104]
Falcon Heavy center core from the STP-2 mission failed to land on the OCISLY due to lack of control from a failure with the thrust vectoring control in the center engine; the side cores landed successfully on ground pads. SpaceX was trying to land the booster with less fuel than normal so the landing target was stationed a record-breaking 1240km (770mi) off the coast of Florida — almost 30% further than any previous recovery attempt. The extra heat caused by less braking than normal damaged the engine.[106]
Falcon 9 first stage B1048.4 landed on OCISLY during the second large batch Starlink mission to launch 60 satellites. This was the first time that a Falcon 9 booster made a fourth flight and landing.[107]
Falcon 9 first stage B1059.1 successfully landed on OCISLY following the launch of the SpaceX CRS-19 commercial resupply mission. It was the first flight and landing for this booster.[108]
Falcon 9 first stage B1056.3 successfully landed on OCISLY following the launch of the Kacific-1/JCSAT-18 communications satellite. It was the third flight and landing for this booster.[109]
Falcon 9 first stage B1049.4 successfully landed on OCISLY following the launch of Starlink L2, which was third large batch of Starlink satellites.[110]
Falcon 9 first stage B1051.3 successfully landed third time on OCISLY following the launch of Starlink L3, which was fourth batch of 60 Starlink satellites launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.[111]
Falcon 9 first stage B1056.4 made a water landing following the launch of Starlink L4, which was the fifth batch of 60 Starlink satellites. The first stage booster failed to land on the drone ship making it the first landing failure of flight proven booster.[112] The booster diverted from the droneship as wind data loaded into booster was different from the actual winds.[113]
Falcon 9 first stage B1048.5 failed to land on OCISLY after an engine anomaly during launch. After a launch abort at T-0s due to out of family data during an engine power check on 15 March 2020,[114] the launch was postponed until 18 March 2020. At T+2:22, an engine shutdown occurred, the second one to ever have happened on a Falcon 9 flight since CRS-1. It performed the entry burn nominally but then at T+7:30 the downlink feed cut out. It is presumed that the booster either broke up in the atmosphere or crashed into the ocean. It was later confirmed by Elon Musk on Twitter that a small amount of isopropyl alcohol was trapped in a sensor dead leg and was ignited during flight.[115]
Falcon 9 first stage B1058.1 successfully landed on OCISLY following the launch of Crew Dragon Demo-2. This was SpaceX's first crewed mission and the first Falcon 9 first stage to launch humans into orbit and successfully return to Earth.[117]
Falcon 9 first stage B1049.5 successfully landed on JRTI following the launch of Starlink L7. This marks only the second time a Falcon core has been able to fly five times.[118]
Falcon 9 first stage B1067.2 successfully landed on ASOG. Originally the droneship JRTI was assigned to recover the first stage booster for this mission, but after JRTI recovery team was struck by harsh weather conditions while being at sea even after launch delays, ASOG was reassigned for this mission's booster recovery.[127]
Falcon 9 first stage B1062.7 successfully landed on JRTI. SpaceX successfully executed furthest downrange landing of a Falcon 9 booster on this mission.
Falcon 9 first stage B1058.19 successfully landed on JRTI. Due to waves and strong winds, the B1058 booster, leader of the fleet with 19 flights, fell into the sea on the way back to port.
Falcon 9 first stage B1073.12 successfully landed on ASOG. 190th landing in a row since the last landing failure and this was also the shortest time between landings on any droneship at just a bit over seven days.
Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo into Earth orbit, and beyond. It is designed, manufactured and launched by American aerospace company SpaceX.
SpaceX has privately funded the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has developed technologies over the last decade to facilitate full and rapid reuse of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site within minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad, following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal would have been reusability of both stages of their orbital launch vehicle, and the first stage would be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return. Development of reusable second stages for Falcon 9 was later abandoned in favor of developing Starship, however, SpaceX developed reusable payload fairings for the Falcon 9.
SpaceX CRS-8, also known as SpX-8, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS) which was launched on April 8, 2016, at 20:43 UTC. It was the 23rd flight of a Falcon 9 rocket, the tenth flight of a Dragon cargo spacecraft and the eighth operational mission contracted to SpaceX by NASA under the Commercial Resupply Services program. The capsule carried over 3,100 kilograms (6,800 lb) of cargo to the ISS including the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM), a prototype inflatable space habitat delivered in the vehicle's trunk, which was attached to the station and, as of May 2022, is expected to remain so for five more full years of in-orbit viability tests.
SpaceX CRS-5, also known as SpX-5, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS), conducted by SpaceX for NASA, and was launched on 10 January 2015 and ended on 11 February 2015. It was the seventh flight for SpaceX's uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft and the fifth SpaceX operational mission contracted to NASA under an ISS resupply services contract.
The Falcon 9 first-stage landing tests were a series of controlled-descent flight tests conducted by SpaceX between 2013 and 2016. Since 2017, the first stage of Falcon 9 missions has been routinely landed if the rocket performance allowed it, and if SpaceX chose to recover the stage.
SES-9 is a geostationary communications satellite operated by SES S.A. It was launched from Cape Canaveral SLC-40 by a Falcon 9 Full Thrust launch vehicle on 4 March 2016.
Falcon 9 Full Thrust is a partially reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. It was first designed in 2014–2015, with its first launch operations in December 2015. As of 18 April 2024, Falcon 9 Full Thrust had performed 305 launches without any failures. Based on the Laplace point estimate of reliability, this rocket is the most reliable orbital launch vehicle in operation.
Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2, also known as LZ-1 and LZ-2 respectively, are landing facilities on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for recovering components of SpaceX's VTVL reusable launch vehicles. LZ-1 and LZ-2 were built on land leased in February 2015, on the site of the former Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 13. SpaceX built Landing Zone 2 at the facility to have a second landing pad, allowing two Falcon Heavy boosters to land simultaneously.
The Falcon Heavy test flight was the first attempt by SpaceX to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket on February 6, 2018, at 20:45 UTC. The successful test introduced the Falcon Heavy as the most powerful rocket in operation at the time, producing five million pounds-force (22 MN) of thrust and having more than twice the payload capacity of the next most powerful rocket, United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy.
The SpaceX fairing recovery program was an experimental program by SpaceX, begun in 2017 in an effort to determine if it might be possible to economically recover and reuse expended launch vehicle payload fairings from suborbital space. The experimental program became an operational program as, by late 2020, the company was routinely recovering fairings from many flights, and by 2021 were successfully refurbishing and reflying previously flown fairings on the majority of their satellite launches.
Falcon 9 B1046 was a reusable Falcon 9 first-stage booster manufactured by SpaceX. It flew four times between 2018 and 2020 before it was expended during a successful abort test of the Crew Dragon. It was the first rocket of the final Falcon 9 upgrade, Block 5.
Falcon 9 booster B1048 was a reusable orbital-class Block 5 Falcon 9 first-stage booster manufactured by SpaceX. B1048 was the third Falcon 9 Block 5 to fly and the second Block 5 booster to re-fly. It became the second orbital-class booster to fly a third time and is the first booster ever to be launched five times. B1048 service came to an end on its fifth flight when an engine shut down prematurely on launch. Whilst the primary mission was unaffected and the Starlink payload deployed successfully, B1048 was unable to land. In a subsequent investigation, SpaceX found that isopropyl alcohol, used as cleaning fluid, was trapped and ignited causing the engine to be shut down. To address the issue, in a following launch SpaceX indicated that the cleaning process was not done.
SpaceX Starship flight tests include eleven launches of prototypes during 2019—2024 of the Starship spacecraft on sub-orbital and low-altitude tests, and three orbital trajectory flights of the entire Starship launch vehicle with a Starship prototype atop a Super Heavy first-stage booster. Designed and operated by private manufacturer SpaceX, the prototypes of Starship flown to date are Starhopper, SN5, SN6, SN8, SN9, SN10, SN11, SN15, Ship 24/B7, Ship 25/B9, and Ship 28/B10.
Falcon 9 booster B1056 was a reusable Falcon 9 Block 5 first-stage booster manufactured by SpaceX. The booster was the fourth Falcon 9 to fly four times and broke a turnaround record for an orbital class booster on its fourth flight. The booster's service came to an end on its fourth flight following a landing failure on a Starlink flight.
A floating launch vehicle operations platform is a marine vessel used for launch or landing operations of an orbital launch vehicle by a launch service provider: putting satellites into orbit around Earth or another celestial body, or recovering first-stage boosters from orbital-class flights by making a propulsive landing on the platform.
Falcon 9 booster B1058 was a reusable Falcon 9 Block 5 first-stage booster manufactured by SpaceX. B1058 was the first Falcon 9 booster to fly fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen times and broke a turnaround record on its later flights. Its first flight was for Crew Dragon Demo-2, the first crewed orbital spaceflight by a private company. The booster was the first and only Falcon 9 booster to feature NASA's worm logo and meatball insignia, which was reintroduced after last being used in 1992. The booster's service ended shortly after its nineteenth successful landing when it toppled over on the droneship due to high winds and rough seas.
1 2 3 4 5 Harwood, William (16 December 2014). "SpaceX readies rocket for station launch, barge landing". CBS News. Archived from the original on 18 December 2019. Retrieved 23 December 2014. A 300-foot-long barge will be used as an off-shore landing platform during launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Friday. The primary goal of the flight is to deliver critical supplies and equipment to the space station, but SpaceX hopes to land the rocket's first-stage on the barge for possible refurbishment and reuse – a key milestone in the company's push to reduce launch costs.
↑ "SpaceX Gets its Own AIS Aids to Navigation Markers". Maritime Executive. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2020. The company's non-charted safety zones will be established from Cape Canaveral, Florida, into the Atlantic Ocean in four different areas, which will be activated individually based on the rocket's planned flight path. The safety zones are designed to keep vessels from entering the area while a launch is taking place. ... [Previously, the] periodic activations have been announced to the maritime community through the Coast Guard Notice to Mariners and Local Notice to Mariners
↑ Graham, William (17 January 2016). "SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 set for Jason-3 launch". NASASpaceFlight.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2016. Retrieved 17 January 2016. For the barge that will be used, an ASDS based on the Marmac 303 barge and bearing the name Just Read the Instructions, it will be the first recovery attempt. The name "Just Read the Instructions", an homage to the literary works of Iain M. Banks, was previously borne by the first ASDS, based on the Marmac 300 barge.
↑ .Shotwell, Gwynne (3 February 2016). Gwynne Shotwell comments at Commercial Space Transportation Conference. Commercial Spaceflight. Event occurs at 2:43:15–3:10:05. Archived from the original on 11 March 2021. Retrieved 4 February 2016. Those are GoPro cameras by the way, unbelievable technology. We fly many of them. ... Our third attempt to land on a drone ship ... this past January ... we did stick the landing, we stuck it and then we unstuck it. ... I love these videos. I think these videos are great! You learn so much from this activity. ... for all of you curmudgeons who say that was a failure, you're totally wrong. We landed. We broke a leg. We learned a little bit. And we're going to land again. ... this is the previous version of the rocket. The landing legs weren't quite as robust ... from a previous design era.
↑ Jason-3 Hosted Webcast. SpaceX. 17 January 2016. Event occurs at 1:06:30 (25:20 after lift-off). Archived from the original on 25 July 2019. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
↑ "SpaceX: ice buildup may have led rocket to tip over". The Washington Post. 18 January 2016. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 18 January 2016. Musk tweeted that the lockout collet on one of the rocket's four legs didn't latch, causing it to tip over after landing. He said the "root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff".
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