Posted on 08/28/2024 7:58:02 AM PDT by NorthMountain
WASHINGTON — A Falcon 9 booster tipped over in a fiery landing after an Aug. 28 launch, the first unsuccessful booster landing in three and a half years by SpaceX.
The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 3:48 a.m. Eastern carrying 21 Starlink satellites. The launch itself went as planned and the Falcon 9 upper stage deployed the satellites into orbit a little more than an hour after liftoff.
The rocket’s first stage returned to make a landing on a droneship, named A Shortfall of Gravitas, in the Atlantic Ocean. The booster’s descent appeared to be normal, but upon landing eight minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff, flames erupted from the base of the booster. The booster tipped over and broke apart within 10 seconds, after which video from the droneship was cut off
“After a successful ascent, Falcon 9’s first stage booster tipped over following touchdown on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship. Teams are assessing the booster’s flight data and status,” SpaceX posted on social media.
This was the fleet-leading 23rd flight of this booster, designated B1062 by SpaceX. Sixteen of those launches were of Starlink missions, with the others including the Inspiration4 and Ax-1 private astronaut missions and flights of GPS and commercial communications satellites.
The landing failure was the first for a Falcon 9 booster since February 2021. On that launch, one of nine Merlin engines in the first stage shut down early in the vehicle’s ascent. While the rocket was able to successfully deploy its batch of Starlink satellites, the booster was unable to land on a droneship. SpaceX determined that a hole in an engine cover, caused by fatigue, allowed exhaust to get into the engine and damage it.
Since that failure, SpaceX had a streak of 268 successful landings, excluding launches where the booster was expended. That includes a December 2023 launch where the booster landed on the droneship but was later swept overboard in rough seas on its way back to port.
This was to be the first of a doubleheader of Falcon 9 launches just hours apart, with a second launch planned for the early morning hours of Aug. 28 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, also carrying Starlink satellites. SpaceX said it was postponing the Vandenberg launch “to give the team time to review booster landing data from the previous launch.” The company did not announce a new launch date.
SpaceX announced the launch doubleheader on short notice after another delay in the launch of the Polaris Dawn private astronaut mission from the Kennedy Space Center. The launch, once scheduled for early Aug. 26, was pushed back a day last week to perform additional pre-flight checks and then another day to fix a helium leak in an umbilical line.
SpaceX announced on the evening of Aug. 27 that it was postponing the launch of Polaris Dawn at least two days, to no earlier than Aug. 30, citing unfavorable weather in splashdown zones off the Florida coast for the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Thrice is ...
Derp State sabotoogie...............
...complacency and statistics actualizing
Nothing to see here, Butch and Suny.
Skip ahead to T+8minutes for the landing...
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-8-6
I watched it live. Looked to me like an engine didn’t shut off properly ... or maybe developed a leak. Buch of fire on the landing pad, then a leg collapsed and gravity did its thing. Not a shortfall of gravitas ... maybe too much gravitas. ;’}
This booster was their reuse leader at 23 flights. Could be they just found out what the fatigue limits are for the landing leg struts it looked like the leg buckled under as soon as it touched down. That or it had a engine leak that melted that strut as there was some fire under the booster after it touched down with green flames that is the burning color of the ignition fluid used to light off the engines it spontaneously combusts on contact with oxygen of that leaks you are having a bad day.
I saw a while back that they’d like to see 40 flights per booster. This mishap will probably lead to a few additional items in their midlife maintenance/inspection/repair checklist.
No other group vin the world can claim such a fantastic record of success.
They are with out any doubt, the best in the business, the best in the world.
S#!t happens every once in awhile too when you have 100,000 components flying in formation and in that environment.
Also the busiest in the world ... more launches in the first half of 2024 than the rest of the world COMBINED. And "the rest of the world" includes ULA and RocketLab, both USA launch providers.
Well, the mission could be described as 90% successful.
Enemy action.
The payload got inserted into a nominal initial orbit.
For every other orbital launch provider (except RocketLab), that constitutes 100% success.
And while I’m not yet ready to say a certain 3 syllable “s” word ... I have thought it a few times.
“Three is...”
DEI coming home to roost?
No doubt the best in the world at rocketry. They will have Starship flying probably by year’s end. They want reusable but they are one or two flights away from having a 200 tonne disposable booster class rocket. No one ever anywhere has come close to that. Falcon 9 is obsolete when they get Starship to orbit even if they throw away the booster and starship the payload is so much you could charge $200 million and still turn a profit throwing everything away. Remember a single RS25 is $146 million EACH at the current contract price. SpaceX says they will have Raptor 3s for under half a million each they are targeting $200,000 each. Raptor 2 already puts out more thrust than a RS25 ,it’s lighter ,smaller and has half the parts in it. Raptor is king of the rocket engines. 200 Starlink birds should fit on a single Starship that’s ten falcons worth.
If they have DEI going on, they’re doing a good job of hiding it.
That’s Ok they have lots more they’re reusable don’t you know
Falcon Heavy might be, but not Falcon 9. There's a market for medium and small launch vehicles. Starship will take over launching Starlink, though. It's really the only way to get the full constellation launched.
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