A SpaceX booster rocket, considered “historic” because it completed a record 19 missions, ended its operations cycle after falling from the platform on which it was transported and losing half of itself to the seabed, the space company announced.
SpaceX also confirmed in a post that it has split into two parts.
“This reusable booster alone launched two astronauts and more than 860 satellites, totaling more than 260 metric tons, into orbit in about 3.5 years,” SpaceX highlighted on the social network.
As specialist media outlet Spaceflight Now noted on Wednesday, this first stage, identified as B1058, completed its final mission last Saturday, when it transported 23 Starlink satellites, SpaceX's broadband internet network, and landed about eight minutes later. From launch on an offshore platform. It is located east of the Bahamas.
On Monday, while standing on the platform amid a strong storm in the Atlantic Ocean towards Port Canaveral in central Florida, the 41-meter-high booster rocket fell due to strong weather conditions.
“Newer Falcon boosters have improved landing legs with the ability to self-level and mitigate this type of issue,” SpaceX explained in its post.
One of the most notable missions that this launch rocket was part of was Demo-2, which in May 2020 transported former NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS), which was the first flight into space from the United States. Soil in new years.
This was the first of eleven crewed missions carried out by SpaceX aboard its Dragon capsules, during which it transported 42 people into space. Evie
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