The Falcon 9 B1060 rocket completed its eighth flight this Wednesday (30) during the mission Transporter-2. The B1060 marks one trip every one and a half months, revealing SpaceX’s progress toward developing a reusable first-stage rocket.
The cadence of shipments of this particular Falcon 9 model is increasing — there have been five flights since January 2021. The number is even more impressive when compared to the orbiters on NASA, which usually perform one or two missions a year, as they need a lot of repairs between releases.
The first use of this transport was in June 2020 during a mission for the US Space Force to install satellites GPS III.
Breaking the sound barrier during the start of the Transporter-2 missionSource: Reproduction/ Trevor Mahlmann
The Falcon 9 rocket line has completed 20 missions this year. The photographer and journalist of the portal Ars Technica, Trevor Mahlmann, recorded images of the launch and landing of the Transporter-2 mission, which sent several commercial and government satellites into space. We can see how time and wear has changed the brave B1060’s appearance.
Landing of the B1060Source: Reproduction/Trevor Mahlmannhl
B1060 before its first launch in 2020 compared to the current state of the rocketSource: Reproduction/ Trevor Mahlmann
Transporter-2 was delayed
Falcon 9’s trip should have taken place this Tuesday (29), but was canceled during the countdown. A plane entered the exclusion zone defined by the US Federal Aviation Administration, hindering launch. After the incident, Space X founder and CEO Elon Musk published a Tweet criticizing the US agency’s regulations.
Unfortunately, launch is called off for today, as an aircraft entered the “keep out zone”, which is unreasonably gigantic.
There is simply no way that humanity can become a spacefaring civilization without major regulatory reform. The current regulatory system is broken.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 29, 2021
“There is simply no way for humanity to become a space civilization without regulatory reform,” the businessman complained. “The current regulatory system is broken,” he concluded.
You can watch the full broadcast of the mission in the video below.
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