28.12.2023
Like long spaghetti strands, cables dangled from the mangled cylindrical base of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster into the waters of Port Canaveral as it floated home via a small watercraft flotilla following a Christmas mishap at sea.
Identified as B1058, this bashed-up booster tipped over atop its drone ship early Monday morning amid rough seas and gusty winds, SpaceX announced.
By 1:40 p.m. Tuesday, the three-legged space wreckage slowly motored along the port channel past Royal Caribbean's towering Allure of the Seas cruise ship toward Fishlips Waterfront Bar & Grill, where spectators shot photos and video from the second-story deck.
"I have not been able to see one of the boosters come in. So that was a great sight to see," Danny Grove, a software engineer from Santa Cruz, California, said from his table on the deck.
"The first time you see it, it's completely destroyed," chimed in his longtime friend Kirk Elifson, a Merritt Island software developer, laughing.
But honestly, it's still a really cool sight to see," Grove replied. "Because not only do you get to see the booster itself, but also some of the interior — you get a view that most people only dream of seeing."
The doomed booster competed its 19th and final flight — tops in the SpaceX fleet — by lifting off at 12:33 a.m. EST Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. After stage separation on the Starlink 6-32 mission, the booster descended and landed on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions out on the Atlantic Ocean to embark on its ill-fated return voyage to the Space Coast.
"During transport back to Port (Canaveral) early this morning, the booster tipped over on the droneship due to high winds and waves. Newer Falcon boosters have upgraded landing legs with the capability to self-level and mitigate this type of issue," SpaceX officials said in a tweet.
The first-stage Falcon 9 booster previously launched astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in May 2020 to the International Space Station on Crew Demo-2. That historic liftoff marked America's first human flight since the space shuttle program concluded in 2011.
In sum, the booster also launched 14 Starlink missions and the ANASIS-11, CRS-21, Transporter-1 and Transporter-3 missions, SpaceX reported.
"This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit 2 astronauts and more than 860 satellites — totaling 260+ metric tons — in ~3.5 years," SpaceX officials said in a Monday tweet.
The battered booster's arrival occurred two days before SpaceX may attempt to launch two rockets from the Cape, Federal Aviation Administration navigational warnings indicate.
Starting at 7 p.m. EST Thursday, a four-hour launch window opens for a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying the Space Force's secretive X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle — a mysterious "mini-shuttle" space plane capable of spending years in orbit.
This USSF-52 national security mission from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center has faced numerous delays in recent weeks.
In addition, though SpaceX has yet to make a public announcement, a launch window for the Starlink 6-36 mission will open from 11 p.m. Thursday past midnight to 3:23 a.m. Friday. If this liftoff occurs, a Falcon 9 will take flight from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Michael Schwarz owns Fishlips Waterfront Bar & Grill. He joined a couple dozen customers who gathered on the deck Tuesday to watch Just Read the Instructions and the booster's metallic remains pass by the restaurant en route to SpaceX's Port Canaveral wharfage.
"It's exciting. Of course, it's almost every other day now, but the guests get all excited about it. Of course, when they're standing up it's even better looking," Schwarz said of SpaceX boosters.
"It's just a unique view. You hate to see it — the loss of the money and the loss of the rocket. But it adds an interesting edge to seeing the picture," Schwarz said.
