2.09.2021
A brand new SpaceX drone ship carrying a scorched Falcon 9 booster returned to Port Canaveral early Tuesday, completing its first mission as part of the company's East Coast fleet.
A Shortfall of Gravitas, which acts as a flat platform for Falcon 9 first stages to land on instead of ditching into the Atlantic Ocean, sailed into port at sunrise and completed its first mission since arriving on the Space Coast in mid-July. It replaced the famous Of Course I Still Love You, which is undergoing work in California ahead of upcoming launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base located northwest of Los Angeles.
The 162-foot booster atop the helipad-shaped ship, scorched and charred from its atmospheric re-entry, launched an uncrewed Dragon capsule with supplies for the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center at 3:14 a.m. Sunday. If all looks well after checkouts and refurbishment, SpaceX will use the booster again for a future mission.
A Shortfall of Gravitas, or ASOG, is an updated version of drone ships SpaceX has been using to recover Falcon 9 first stages since 2016. Among its many upgrades, according to Elon Musk, are more powerful engines designed to better handle rough oceans – an important capability considering SpaceX has had to scrub several launches over the years due to conditions at the landing zone in the Atlantic.
Since first doing so in December 2015, SpaceX has successfully landed boosters 90 times on a combination of drone ships and land-based pads. That figure includes both East Coast and West Coast operations.
ASOG joins Just Read the Instructions, another drone ship stationed at Port Canaveral. SpaceX benefits from having more than one mobile landing platform not only to keep up with a rapid launch cadence, but also for Falcon Heavy missions, which feature three booster cores. If the mission's parameters are flexible and enough propellant remains, SpaceX would ideally land two of the boosters simultaneously at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station while the third uses a drone ship.
Like the two other ships, ASOG was named to honor the late science fiction writer Iain M. Banks. All three reference to ships featured in his "Culture" series of novels.
Either one of SpaceX's East Coast drone ships, meanwhile, will be called to action again no earlier than Sept. 15. That's when Inspiration 4, an all-private mission purchased by billionaire Jared Isaacman, will fly from pad 39A with a Crew Dragon capsule on several orbits around Earth.
Isaacman, founder and CEO of payment processor Shift4 Payments, will be joined by healthcare worker Hayley Arceneaux; professor and science communicator Sian Proctor; and engineer Chris Sembroski. The mission has raised millions – on top of a $100 million donation from Isaacman – for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Quelle: Florida Today