A “smokestack from space” made its way back to San Pedro on Friday, as Hawthorne-based SpaceX ferried home the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket used in Wednesday morning’s launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc.
The Falcon 9 Block 5 booster chugged into SpaceX’s facility at the Port of Los Angeles after successfully deploying the latest 10 satellites from communications company Iridium.
Iridium has placed 75 total satellites into service via SpaceX missions, as it methodically upgrades its satellite constellation, which serves major retailers, consumer companies, phone apps and other services.The booster landed on the “Just Read the Instructions,” drone ship amid high winds, dense skies and choppy seas on the Pacific. The module touched down on the platform, although thin lighting and weather-snarled signal made it impossible to see on SpaceX’s live webcast.
During the livecast, spokesman John Insprucker , the familiar “voice of SpaceX,” called the conditions “the worst we’ve ever had” for trying to recover a booster at sea. SpaceX recovers and reuses myriad components to make each mission more affordable for its clients.
JRTI’s cousin “Mr. Steven,” the SpaceX ship now equipped with towering articulated arms and a mammoth net that’s four times bigger than the previous version, could not snag either half of the ship’s fairing in mid-air, but it did tote the nosecone back to San Pedro this week after retrieving it from the gnarly waters.
The block 5 is SpaceX’s most powerful individual booster to be used in a mission so far. SpaceX tested the Falcon Heavy in February, comprised of a bulked-up Falcon 9 first stage as the main engine with two more boosters strapped on to further increase the power. The test carried Space X founder Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster on a mission past Mars, a place the entrepreneur vows to land on some day.
Musk also operates the Boring Company, which is digging a test tunnel for underground rail travel, and a design center for his Tesla auto company in Hawthorne.
SpaceX will be back on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Aug. 4. Another Falcon 9 rocket is slated to carry the Merah Putih communications satellite into orbit to improve telecommuications for India and southeast Asia.
The mission, commissioned by Telkom Indonesia, will replace the Telkom 1 satellite, which experts say is falling apart in space. The launch was rescheduled from Aug. 2.
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