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SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 Block 5 booster casualty battered but still intact in aerial photos

While battered and wounded, Falcon 9 B1050 is intact and (mostly) in one piece. (Tom Cross)

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6 years ago

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Shortly after successfully sending a reused Cargo Dragon spacecraft on its way towards the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 booster B1050 experienced an anomaly with its grid fins during a planned landing, resulting in a shockingly soft (but unintentional) landing just off the Florida coast.

By some minor miracle, the drastically off-nominal loads experienced by the booster during its unintended departure from controlled flight somehow did not rise to the bar of structural failure. Nevertheless, now floating a handful of miles east of Port Canaveral’s mouth, B1050 did not make it through the ordeal unscathed.

https://twitter.com/_TomCross_/status/1070742919986991107

A little more than 24 hours after the booster found itself floating sideways in the Atlantic Ocean, B1050 had floated a solid ten miles south of its original position into waters and airspace that no longer fell under the purview of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, technically a military outpost. As the captains of tugboat Eagle and SpaceX support vessel GO Quest discussed the logistics of returning the booster to port with the local harbormaster and US Coast Guard, Teslarati photographer Tom Cross chartered a local helicopter to get a slightly better view of the waterlogged rocket and its ad-hoc recovery operations.

A casualty of war (with the air)

Second only to the fact that the booster appears to be in disproportionately good shape considering the circumstances, by far the most noteworthy feature of the newest addition to SpaceX’s marine fleet is the sheer damage suffered by B1050’s interstage, the black carbon fiber composite structure that topsFalcon 9 Block 5 boosters and hosts its grid fins and stage separation mechanism.

Revealed from an aerial perspective, it almost looks as if one side of the composite cylinder was smashed with a giant hammer, tearing off at least 20% of the entire interstage – including one of four titanium grid fins – while leaving another large segment hanging on by only partially-figurative carbon fiber threads.

 

It’s not 100% clear why B1050’s interstage was so readily destroyed but a narrative can certainly be drawn from the current public record. After its grid fins lost hydraulic power and became stuck at an extreme angle, B1050 almost immediately lost control and began rapidly and quite brutally spinning and flailing, tossed around as it hurtled through the air at supersonic speeds. Being a predominately smooth cylinder, Falcon 9’s first stage is inherently prone to rotation in the presence of high-velocity air currents, which is why its grid fins are an absolute necessity for maintaining control authority during in-atmosphere “flights”.

In a show that will turn the stomach of anyone familiar with a rocket’s typically narrow load tolerances, Falcon 9 B1050 experienced extreme aerodynamic stresses during the worst of its uncontrolled tumble, to the extent that the entire booster and interstage can be seen visibly twisting at least 5 degrees left and right from the perspective of an onboard camera. In the video above, focus on the center of Falcon 9’s grid fins during the first and last 5-10 seconds to properly visualize the extreme forces at play.

It might look fairly innocent to the untrained eye, but keep in mind that Falcon 9’s interstage is no more than a couple of inches thick and is absolutely massive, stretching 3.7m (~12 ft) in diameter. Perhaps even more importantly, the damage to the interstage has almost without a doubt rendered it unusable from the perspective of SpaceX’s established methods of safely moving and manipulating Falcon 9 boosters.

 

All of those methods rely on adapters that attach to the interstage to lift the rocket vertically or support part of its ~30-ton dry mass horizontally. Lacking a sound interstage, it’s now entirely unclear how SpaceX might go about getting B1050 onto land without damaging it further. In simpler terms, this bodes very, very badly for any plans to safely reuse B1050 in the near (or distant) future. After suffering loads that severely weakened and ultimately tore its interstage to pieces, it’s reasonable to assume that the rest of the rocket’s lithium-aluminum propellant tanks experienced stresses that are at least roughly comparable.

If that’s the case, perhaps the only real hope for B1050’s ‘reuse’ will be the recovery of certain subcomponents and miscellaneous parts that may have made it through the ordeal unscathed or with only minor damage. The three remaining titanium grid fins are a guaranteed recovery, while COPVs, cold gas thrusters, avionics boxes, and maybe even some of its nine Merlin 1D engines could be salvageable with some level of refurbishment.

In the meantime, the tentative plan right now is to two B1050 into Port Canaveral sometime after dawn tomorrow, either ending up at drone ship OCISLY’s berth or another less-developed section of the port.

For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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SpaceX and Elon Musk explain potential reasons for Starship loss

Published

2 months ago

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January 17, 2025

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk are starting to shed some light on the potential reasoning for the loss of Starship yesterday, which was lost after a successful launch and catch of the lower-stage booster.

Starship was lost during its ascension, and debris rained down over the Caribbean less than an hour after SpaceX lost all communication with the spacecraft.

A few hours after the launch was over, SpaceX started to shed some light after looking at preliminary data that the rocket left behind.

The company said that a fire developed in the aft section of Starship:

“Following stage separation, the Starship upper stage successfully lit all six Raptor engines and performed its ascent burn to space. Prior to the burn’s completion, telemetry was lost with the vehicle after approximately eight and a half minutes of flight. Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship, leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly with debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas.”

Additionally, Musk said that there was some sort of oxygen or fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall.

The leak was evidently large enough to build more pressure than the vent was able to handle:

Some also seemed to recognize evidence of fires throughout the flight of Starship, which is obviously an anomaly:

There will be more information regarding the loss of Starship in the coming days and weeks, but Musk already believes that a bit of fire suppression and more volume in the cavity above the ship engine firewall could fix the issue.

“Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month,” he said, so Flight 8 could happen sometime in February.

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Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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SpaceX completes second catch of lower stage, but loses Starship

Published

2 months ago

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January 16, 2025

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX completed its seventh launch of Starship on Thursday, accomplishing a clean liftoff and catch of the first-stage booster. However, the upper stage was lost after its ascent.

The launch took place just a few minutes after 5 p.m. on the East Coast, as the first attempts at getting Starship in the air for the seventh time were delayed by weather both last week and this week.

Conditions were favorable on Thursday as SpaceX looked to follow up a successful campaign by Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s company, earlier today.

SpaceX went into the seventh Starship launch with plans for a catch attempt of the first-stage booster, something it attempted and completed during the fifth test launch last year. It decided to skip a catch attempt with the sixth test flight as conditions were not aligned.

For now, SpaceX is extremely selective as to when it attempts catches.

However, it was successful during this attempt, its second completed catch:

This flight differed from previous launches as SpaceX rolled out several improvements to the rocket and the processes as it featured plans to do a Starlink deployment simulation and had various adjustments to flap placement and avionics.

These plans were disrupted by the fact that SpaceX lost all communications with Starship about ten minutes into the flight, which the aerospace company confirmed was a result of losing the spacecraft sometime during its ascent.

Although the catch was successful, the loss of the actual rocket seemed to be a huge damper on the entire event. SpaceX confirmed several minutes after the loss of communications that the rocket was destroyed and was lost.

It was its first failure since the second Starship launch in November 2023. SpaceX had no answers for why the rocket was destroyed and lost.

We will keep you updated in the coming days.

Need accessories for your Tesla? Check out the Teslarati Marketplace:

Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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SpaceX confirms next Starship launch target – Here’s when it will take off

Published

2 months ago

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January 9, 2025

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spacex starship upper stage catch
Credit: Elon Musk | X

SpaceX has confirmed a new target date for the seventh Starship test launch after weather in Texas delayed the first scheduled date for “three or four days.”

The company is now targeting the launch for Monday, January 13, at 4 p.m. CST or 5 p.m. EST. The launch date is not set in stone as any variety of delays could impact this, but SpaceX hopes to finally take off after a delay that pushed it back from January 10.

What’s new with this Starship launch

With this being the seventh test launch of Starship, there are several things that the company will change and hope to accomplish. All of these launches are done in preparation for eventually taking flight to Mars, something that will happen next year, according to CEO Elon Musk.

First, SpaceX is rolling out a next-generation ship with “significant upgrades.” Forward flaps have been made smaller and are repositioned away from the heat shield, which will “reduce their exposure to reentry heating.”

SpaceX eyes 25 annual Starship launches starting next year

There is also a 25 percent increase in propellant volume, a new fuel feedline system for the Raptor vacuum engines, and a better-than-ever propulsion avionics module that will control the valves and reading sensors.

Avionics, as a whole, underwent a redesign and now have more capability and redundancy for missions as they become more complex.

Starlink test

SpaceX is also planning to deploy 10 Starlink simulators that are similar in size and weight to the next-generation Starlink satellites:

“While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.”

Ship return and catch

There will be several experiments that have to do with returning Starship and various catch scenarios and sequences. One of which will see “a significant number of tiles be removed to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle.”

The ship’s reentry profile was also intentionally designed to test the structural limits of the flaps while at the point of maximum dynamic pressure during reentry.

Currently, SpaceX did not detail whether it would attempt another catch during this test launch. These are usually game-time decisions.

Need accessories for your Tesla? Check out the Teslarati Marketplace:

Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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