The Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on SpaceX’s first crew mission in 2020 launched and landed for the nineteenth and remaining time simply earlier than Christmas, then tipped over on its restoration ship throughout the journey again to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
This explicit booster, identified by the tail quantity B1058, was particular amongst SpaceX’s fleet of reusable rockets. It was the fleet chief, having tallied 19 missions over the course of greater than three-and-a-half years. More importantly, it was the rocket that thundered into house on May 30, 2020, on a flight that made historical past on a number of counts.
It was the first time a business rocket and spacecraft launched folks into orbit, and ended a nine-year hole in America’s potential to ship astronauts into orbit from US soil, following the retirement of the house shuttle. This mission, often known as Demo-2 and launched by SpaceX below contract with NASA, ended US reliance on Russian rockets to ship crews to the International Space Station.
SpaceX recovered the booster on one of its offshore touchdown platforms after the historic launch in May 2020, whereas the Falcon 9’s higher stage fired into orbit with the Crew Dragon spacecraft containing Hurley and Behnken. Then, the rocket went into SpaceX’s fleet rotation to launch 18 extra instances, primarily on missions to deploy Starlink Internet satellites.
Hurley, who commanded the Crew Dragon spacecraft on the Demo-2 mission, stored up with the booster’s exploits effectively after his return to Earth. He commonly exchanged textual content messages with Behnken and Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vp of launch, as the rocket simply stored flying.
“For Bob and I, that individual booster was all the time fairly particular for a lot of causes,” mentioned Hurley, a veteran Marine Corps fighter pilot who retired from NASA’s astronaut corps in 2021. He now works at Northrop Grumman.
An inauspicious ending
Hurley instructed Ars he want to see the booster’s stays displayed in a museum alongside the Crew Dragon spacecraft (named Endeavour) he and Behnken flew in 2020. “In a excellent world, I’d like to see Endeavour and no less than now half of that booster in the Smithsonian or in a museum someplace,” he mentioned.
“It’s variety of a bummer,” Hurley instructed Ars. But he understands SpaceX acquired a lot of use out of this rocket. SpaceX additionally has a lot of love for Hurley and Behnken. The firm named two of its restoration ships for payload fairings “Bob” and “Doug” after the astronaut duo.
“SpaceX has got a business to run,” he said. “I think, at this point, certainly Endeavour is going to fly more, but this booster isn’t, so hopefully they can find a spot to display it somewhere. Even part of it would look kind of cool somewhere. They could figure something out … People, I think, can get a lot of inspiration from seeing stuff that’s actually flown in space, and being able to get right up close to it, I think, is a big deal to a lot of people.”
NASA
The nineteenth launch of this booster on December 23 was simply as profitable as the earlier 18, with a easy climb into house earlier than shutting down its 9 kerosene-fueled Merlin engines. The booster coasted to the highest level in its trajectory—72 miles (116 kilometers)—earlier than Earth’s gravity pulled it again into the environment.
Two engine burns slowed the rocket because it descended towards SpaceX’s drone ship positioned close to the Bahamas, after which 4 carbon-fiber legs deployed moments earlier than an on-target landing. Then, as common, the restoration vessel began its sluggish journey again to Florida with the 15-story-tall booster standing vertically.