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SpaceX snags second Falcon 9 booster in two weeks after Crew Dragon launch

Falcon 9 B1051 returned to Port Canaveral for the first time aboard drone ship Of Course I Still Love You on March 5th. (Pauline Acalin)

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SpaceX and the company’s drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) have successfully wrapped up their second Falcon 9 recovery in less than two weeks, bringing booster B1051 back to Port Canaveral to be broken over and refurbished for a second launch.

Following its support of Crew Dragon’s thus far flawless launch debut, the booster will likely be exceptionally easy to turn around for its next flight. That second launch could occur as early as late April for Cargo Dragon’s 17th mission, a consequence of NASA’s desire to keep its SpaceX missions on boosters that are ‘in family‘ (i.e. only new boosters or flight-proven boosters that have only launched NASA payloads).

https://twitter.com/_TomCross_/status/1102944003358687232

Although B1051’s reentry profile was relatively slow and gentle with main engine cut-off (MECO) and booster separation occurring at ~1.9 km/s (4250 mph) and 85 km (53 mi), its recovery was made intriguingly difficult by high seas at drone ship OCISLY’s Atlantic Ocean station. These bad conditions were readily visible at several points during SpaceX’s DM-1 livestream, with OCISLY heeling several degrees as the Falcon 9 booster’s Merlin 1D engine lit up the surrounding area like a floodlight. In fact, B1051’s post-landing struggle could actually be seen live as the booster clearly slide several meters across the drone ship’s deck almost immediately after touching down.

This issue of boosters sliding about and generally being difficult to deal with is actually one of the leading motivations that lead to SpaceX developing Octagrabber, a tank-like robot used to remotely secure recovery Falcon 9 first stages while minimizing the risk to the recovery team. In a situation like DM-1, with B1051 already sliding around OCISLY’s deck immediately after a night landing, Octagrabber would nominally be remotely activated and controlled, crawling from its garage to grab Falcon 9’s hold-down clamps and secure the stage with its own weight.

It’s actually unclear whether Octagrabber is capable of this sort of remote operation without SpaceX technicians aboard OCISLY, nor if SpaceX – as of late – has even tried to attempt to secure Falcon 9 boosters at night. The process of transferring crew between ships in heavy seas is actually quite dangerous on its own, so it would be less than surprising to hear that SpaceX’s recovery managers have cut down on nighttime operations in bad weather if Octagrabber can only be operated with crew present on OCISLY. For B1051, the drone ship, a tugboat, and crew boat GO Quest remained in the vicinity of the landing target until the following morning (still March 2nd) before beginning the ~500 km (~300 mi) trek back to Port Canaveral. Greeted by moody low-hanging clouds and scattered showers, observers were actually able to capture the rare sight – as pictured above – of Octagrabber being driven back into its blast shield/garage.

Regardless, future Commercial Crew launches – aside, perhaps, from SpaceX’s second demonstration launch (DM-2) later this year – will likely be able perform return-to-launch-site (RTLS) landings at the company’s Florida landing zones, much like Falcon 9 boosters already do after Cargo Dragon (CRS) missions. According to VP of Mission Assurance Hans Koenigsmann, B1051 had to conduct a drone ship (ASDS) recovery at sea due to NASA’s desire for conservative performance reserves to guard against the potential (and extremely unlikely) failure of one or several Merlin engines during the launch’s boost stage. In 2012, Falcon 9 suffered its first and only (known) in-flight Merlin failure, an anomaly which the rocket’s autonomously avionics perfectly dealt with to save the primary mission (Cargo Dragon’s operational debut, CRS-1). A secondary Orbcomm communications satellite sadly failed to make it to its operational orbit, however, classifying the mission as a partial failure. More recently, there have been unconfirmed hints pointing to other potential in-flight Merlin 1D failures, albeit during booster recovery attempts instead of the main boost phase. Whether or not those anomalies actually occurred, NASA is clearly all about extreme conservatism and ‘safety first’ approaches for the Commercial Crew Program (or at least SpaceX’s side of it).

SpaceX’s successful recovery of B1051 marks the company’s third launch and landing of 2019, thus far averaging a relatively slow one mission per month. While schedules can change, it currently appears that Crew Dragon’s DM-1 orbital debut will be the only SpaceX launch in March, barring Falcon Heavy’s own commercial debut occurring in the last few days of the month. According to a SpaceX representative speaking earlier this year, the company is actually aiming to equal or even surpass its 2018 record – 21 launches – in 2019, requiring a minimum average of two launches per month for the remainder of the year.

Numbers aside, SpaceX’s 2019 calendar will undoubtedly aim to surpass the number of major company milestones in a single year, a hard act to follow after 2017 and 2018. Ranging from the first operational Starlink satellite launches and the first SpaceX launch with astronauts aboard to major flight test and developmental milestones for the company’s next-gen Starship spaceship and Super Heavy booster, there are an incredible wealth of events to look forward to.

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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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Tesla Cybertruck fleet takes over at SpaceX’s Starbase

Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.

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Credit: @derek1ee | X

Tesla Cybertrucks have taken over at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, as hundreds of the all-electric pickup trucks were spotted late last week rounding out a massive fleet of vehicles.

The Cybertruck fleet is geared toward replacing gas vehicles that are used at Starbase for everyday operations. The only surprise about this is that it was not done sooner:

Deliveries have been going on for a few weeks, as Cybertrucks have made their way across the state of Texas from Austin to Starbase so they could be included in SpaceX’s fleet of vehicles at the facility.

Interestingly, the Cybertruck uses the same exterior, a stainless steel alloy, as SpaceX rockets. This synergy between the two companies and their very different products shows a very unified mentality between Musk companies.

However, there are some other perspectives to consider as SpaceX is utilizing such a massive fleet of Cybertrucks. Some media outlets (unsurprisingly) are seeing this as a move of weakness by both Tesla and SpaceX, as the aerospace company is, in a sense, “bailing out” lagging sales for the all-electric pickup.

It’s no secret that Tesla has struggled with the Cybertruck this year, and deliveries have been underwhelming in the sense that the company was anticipating between 1 million and 2 million orders for the vehicle before it was widely produced.

A lot of things changed with the Cybertruck between its 2019 unveiling and 2023 initial deliveries, most notably, price.

The price of the Cybertruck swelled significantly and priced out many of those who had pre-ordered it. Some have weighed the option of whether this purchase was a way to get rid of sitting inventory.

However, it seems more logical to consider the fact that SpaceX was likely always going to transition to Teslas for its fleet, especially at Starship, at some point.

It doesn’t seem out of the question that one Musk company would utilize another Musk company’s products, especially considering the Cybertruck has been teased as the vehicle that would be present on Mars.

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SpaceX successfully launches 100th Starlink mission of 2025

With 100 Starlink missions completed for 2025, space enthusiasts have noted that SpaceX has successfully launched 2,554 Starlink satellites so far this year.

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(Credit: Starlink)

SpaceX achieved its 100th Starlink mission of the year on Friday, October 31, marking another milestone for 2025. 

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink broadband satellites successfully lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 4:41 p.m. ET, carrying another 28 Starlink satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

Falcon 9 booster’s 29th flight

Roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9’s first stage touched down on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. This marked the booster’s 29th flight, which is approaching SpaceX’s reuse record of 31 missions.

This latest mission adds to SpaceX’s impressive 138 Falcon 9 launches in 2025, 99 of which were dedicated to Starlink, according to Space.com. The company’s focus on reusing boosters has enabled this breakneck pace, with multiple launches each week supporting both Starlink’s expansion and external customers.

Starlink’s network continues massive global expansion

Starlink remains the largest active satellite constellation in history, with more than 10,000 satellites launched, nearly 8,800 of which are currently active. SpaceX recently achieved Starlink’s 10,000-satellite milestone. With 100 Starlink missions completed for 2025, space enthusiasts have noted that SpaceX has successfully launched 2,554 Starlink satellites so far this year.

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Starlink, which provides high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity even to the world’s most remote areas, has been proven to be life-changing technology for people across the globe. The service is currently operational in about 150 countries, and it currently has over 5 million subscribers worldwide. From this number, 2.7 million joined over the past year.

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SpaceX

SpaceX checks off 49 lunar lander milestones in push toward Artemis III

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has revealed that it has completed 49 major milestones for NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program, marking significant progress in the development of the Starship lunar lander that will deliver astronauts to the Moon. 

The updates were detailed in SpaceX’s new blog post To the Moon and Beyond, which was recently posted on the private space company’s official website.

As noted by SpaceX, the 49 milestones that were completed by its HLS team were “tied to developing the subsystems, infrastructure, and operations” needed to safely land humans back into the lunar surface. SpaceX noted that it has only received funding on contractual milestones that have been successfully completed, the vast majority of which have been achieved on time or ahead of schedule.

Following are highlights of SpaceX’s completed milestones, as per the company’s post. 

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  • Lunar environmental control and life support and thermal control system demonstrations, using a full-scale cabin module inhabited by multiple people to test the capability to inject oxygen and nitrogen into the cabin environment and accurately manage air distribution and sanitation, along with humidity and thermal control. The test series also measured the acoustic environments inside the cabin
  • Docking adapter qualification of the docking system that will link Starship and Orion in space, an androgynous SpaceX docking system capable of serving as the active system or passive system and based on the flight-proven Dragon 2 active docking system
  • Landing leg drop test of a full-scale article at flight energies onto simulated lunar regolith to verify system performance and to study foot-to-regolith interaction
  • Raptor lunar landing throttle test demonstrating a representative thrust profile that would allow Starship to land on the lunar surface
  • Micrometeoroid and orbital debris testing of shielding, insulation, and window panels, analyzing different material stackups that will be used to protect Starship from impact hazards and harsh thermal conditions
  • Landing software, sensor, and radar demonstrations testing navigation and sensing hardware and software that will be used by Starship to locate and safely descend to a precise landing site on the Moon
  • Software architecture review to define the schematic of major vehicle control processes, what physical computers they will run on, and software functions for critical systems like fault detection, caution and warning alerts, and command and telemetry control
  • Raptor cold start demonstrations using both sea-level and vacuum-optimized Raptor engines that are pre-chilled prior to startup to simulate the thermal conditions experienced after an extended time in space
  • Integrated lunar mission operations plan review, covering how SpaceX and NASA will conduct integrated operations, develop flight rules and crew procedures, and the high-level mission operation plan
  • Depot power module demonstration, testing prototype electrical power generation and distribution systems planned to be used on the propellant depot variant of Starship
  • Ground segment and radio frequency (RF) communications demonstration, testing the capability to send and receive RF communications between a flight-equivalent ground station and a flight-equivalent vehicle RF system
  • Elevator and airlock demonstration, which was conducted in concert with Axiom to utilize flight-representative pressurized EVA suits, to practice full operation of the crew elevator which will be used to transfer crew and cargo between Starship and the lunar surface
  • Medical system demonstration covering the crew medical system on Starship and the telemedicine capability between the ground and crew
  • Hardware in the loop testbed activation for the propellant transfer flight test which uses a testbed with flight representative hardware to run simulations for the upcoming propellant transfer flight test

Ultimately, SpaceX’s message is clear. With its plans for a simplified architecture, the timeframe of the first crewed lunar landing of the current century could happen sooner than expected.

Musk definitely seems determined to prove skeptics wrong, with the CEO declaring on X that Starship will be the vehicle that would pave the way for the buildout of a base on the Moon. “Starship will build Moonbase Alpha,” Musk wrote.

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