Falcon 9 first stage makes record tenth flight
The Falcon 9 rocket was launched on May 9 from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome. It successfully delivered into orbit the 27th working batch of spacecraft Starlink. But the main focus of the space science lovers was not on the payload but on the first stage with flight number B1051. For her it was the tenth jubilee space flight.
The stage successfully accomplished its mission. After separation, B 1 0 5 1 landed on a barge, thus setting a n e w record for reusing this component of a carrier.
B1051 was first deployed in March 2019 on a mission whose purpose was to send the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the ISS in unmanned mode. Since then, it has launched commercial payloads twice (RADARSAT and SXM-7 satellites) and Starlink spacecraft seven more times. In a recent interview, Elon Musk said that in his opinion, the Falcon 9 first stages do not have any obvious reusability limit. Therefore, SpaceX will launch them until any serious breakdowns are identified. At the same time, the company does not intend to use the record-breaking stages for manned or commercial launches. They will be used for Starkink deployment missions.
It’s worth noting that last year’s launch was the Falcon 9 carrier’s fourth mission in the last 16 days. In total, SpaceX has already carried out a total of 14 space launches this year. This is more than the total number of Falcon 9 launches for the entire year 2019.
