11TH DECEMBER 2019 ISSUE NUMBER 03

What about it!? The need for knowledge

NEWS UPDATE

Is a 24-Hour Booster Reuse Possible?

By STINGER NSW Booster Fleet The turnaround for a reflown booster includes refurbishment time but also the time to find a B1046 customer who will use it. SpaceX’s Ultimate Goal Flown: 3 is to achieve a 24-Hour turnaround. The quickest Last Flight: 3 December 2018 turnaround for the same booster was set at 71 days and 10 hours by B1045 a Block 4 booster, Status: Awaiting In-flight Abort Test between the TESS and CRS-15 Missions back in (Booster will be expended) 2018. B1048

For SpaceX to succeed at reducing the cost of Flown: 4 getting payloads into orbit, reusability of launch Booster B1047.2 Es’Hail 2 Mission | Photo Credit >>> SpaceX Last Flight: 11 November 2019 vehicles is imperative. The first phase of this The Falcon 9 is inherently built with reusability in Status: Refurbishing involves returning the first stage of the rocket mind and to have that, the rocket had to be safely to Earth intact, an incredibly difficult task designed so that it will have as many numerous involving a combination of three burns that must launches as possible until the refurbishment is B1049 be executed perfectly among other variables like needed. In terms of the refurbishment regime Flown: 3 launch profiles, re-entry speeds, landing adopted by SpaceX, they are not openly discussing Last Mission: 24 May 2019 conditions and the booster operational processes. details of their re-flight internal procedures. Any Status: Awaiting Mission

overhaul is likely to be finished in no more than 1 With 12 Rideshare missions, 23 dedicated Starlink to 2 weeks, as all the parts of the Falcon 9 are B1051 missions (If there are no further Starlink launches manufactured and tested in-house. in 2019) and 18 possible Customer missions, it is Flown: 2 probable that we will see a record amount of SpaceX’s Jessica Jensen has been reported as Last Flight: 12 June 2019 launches in 2020, totalling 53. This would equate saying “because of the Block 5 efficiency and Status: Unknown to a Falcon 9 launch every week in the 2020 reusability, the company has actually scaled back calendar year. To put that into perspective, that is the manufacturing of new Falcon 9 boosters”. B1052 (Falcon Heavy Side Booster) the number of launches that occurred in 2017, 2018 & 2019 combined. The refurbishment process is still evolving as Flown: 2 SpaceX continues to learn from their current Last Flight: 25 June 2019 Therefore, a booster turnaround based on the operations. In theory, the relaunch procedure Status: Awaiting Mission current fleet of 6 (Not including B1046, B1052 and could be carried out within 24 hours and be B1053) would require a minimum of 42 days repeated up to ten times without any major work B1053 (Falcon Heavy Side Booster) noting that this is based on successful booster having to be done on the booster, even achieve a Flown: 2 returns and customers’ acceptance to reuse a extend relaunch life with a partial refurbishment flight-proven booster. keeping the current fleet of boosters mission Last Flight: 25 June 2019 ready. Status: Awaiting Mission

B1056 Flown: 2 Last Flight: 25 July 2019 Status: Awaiting JCSat-18 / Kacific-1 Mission

B1058 Status: Testing Phase Static Fire Acceptance Test carried out on the 26 October 2019 at McGregor, Texas Assigned to Crew Dragon Demo-2

B1059 Flown: 1 Last Flight: 5 December 2019 Status: Refurbishing Photo Credit >>> SpaceX LC-39A Horizontal Integration Hanger

with four recovered boosters Photo Credit >>> SpaceX