SpaceX Tops Year With 100 Rocket Landings & Drastic Increase In Reusability

SpaceX'south Falcon ix rocket carrying NASA's Imaging 10-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) satellite on its style to an equatorial orbit earlier this month. Epitome: SpaceX/Twitter

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) successfully launched their third cargo resupply mission for 2021 to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier today. This mission used SpaceX'due south Falcon nine rocket, and it was only the second time the company used a make new Falcon 9 rocket for a mission in 2021. This marked for a steep reduction over final year, and it made for the least corporeality of new rockets that SpaceX has used during a full calendar twelvemonth in its history. Additionally, the new booster which landed soon after liftoff marked a century of booster landings by the company which has its sights set on Mars through achieving rapid reusability, equally information technology remains the but global entity capable of landing its orbital-grade rockets.

SpaceX Delivers Handheld Tissue Printer, Other Science Experiments To ISS As Part Of Historic Launch

Today's launch marks the second time that SpaceX used a new rocket for its missions in 2021, which is the lowest in the company's history, chirapsia 2013 when all of the year's launches had used new rockets. Additionally, it also marks the 100th Falcon 9 recovery ever since the offset booster landed at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in 2015, a feat that took SpaceX vi years to accomplish.

Onboard the new booster that took to the skies early morning today was SpaceX's second-generation cargo Dragon capsule, which flew roughly three tons of cargo to the ISS. This payload includes holiday supplies for the astronauts on the orbiting infinite laboratory, alongside experiments ranging from biology to cancer research and materials sciences.

The Cargo Dragon will bring together SpaceX'due south Crew Dragon on the ISS, which took off in November just days after the preceding Coiffure-ii mission returned to Earth later on testing its endurance limits. Today'due south launch was also another special occasion that saw SpaceX fire on all cylinders to apace launch three unlike missions from three different launch pads in but iv days.

A slide shared by SpaceX'due south director Dragon mission management, Ms. Sarah Walker during a printing conference for the CRS-24 mission yesterday indicated that the company's ratio of reused to new rocket boosters is continuously decreasing over the years. Image: SpaceX/NASA Boob tube

The CRS-24 mission marks the fourth mission for the renewed cargo delivery contract between NASA and SpaceX, with two missions remaining to exist launched potentially next year. It volition be followed by the crewed Crew-4 launch expected during the first half of 2021, aslope SpaceX'due south first private crewed ISS mission post-obit Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa's trip to the infinite station on board the Russian Soyuz before this month. Maezawa has likewise signed up for a trip to lunar orbit on SpaceX's Starship launch vehicle platform.

Out of the 31 launches from SpaceX this year, the majority remained dedicated to the cmpany's Starlink satellite internet constellation. Starlink, which accounted for 53% or xiv of SpaceX'southward 26 launches last year saw this percentage increase slightly to 54% in 2021 for 17 of the total 31 launches during the calendar year.

However, as highlighted by SpaceX's managing director Dragon mission management, Ms. Sarah Walker during a press conference for the CRS-24 mission yesterday, 2021 too saw a rapid increase in reusability. While SpaceX used what it calls 'flight proven' boosters for 5 launches (xix%) in 2020, this year it drastically cutting downwardly the percent to 6%. Or in other words, the reused boosters accounted for 93% of the Hawthorne, California launch services provider's 2021 launch manifest.

The high rocket reuse will help SpaceX focus its funds on other areas, equally it aims to build both the earth's largest satellite constellation and the world's largest rocket in ane go. The company's Starlin satellite constellation aims to place equally many equally 42,000 spacecraft in the Earth's orbit, while its Starship launch vehicle system hopes to further reduce the costs of space access by reusing the entire rocket and carrying heavier payloads to the low Earth orbit (LEO), the Moon and to Mars.

Among the payloads flying on the cargo Dragon right now is an experiment from Proctor & Adventure (P&1000), which aims to develop a detergent to enable astronauts and space travelers to wash their wearing apparel in infinite. Another aims to develop sturdier turbine blades in microgravity to improve jet engines and power generation plants.