First To Launch, Land That Total Enters Record Book

A flight by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster B1067 in April set a record for the first time ever that a booster has been launched, recovered via soft landing, and reused 27 times. Coincidentally, that mission deployed 27 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit.

As most people with even just a passing interest in spaceflight activities are likely familiar with, SpaceX has developed a system that autonomously returns booster rockets back to Earth and to land either on the ground near the launch site, or on an autonomous barge called a droneship at sea off the coast of Florida or California.

This particular mission with B1067 landed on the droneship Just Read the Instructions approximately eight minutes after launch, where it will be prepared for its 28th mission. Such booster return landings have been well-documented and circulated on social media as well as the SpaceX website.

The reuse of first stage boosters has enabled SpaceX to drastically cut the cost of launches, as previously, boosters were used only time after preprogrammed to simply splash down in the ocean and not recovered.

This booster previously launched missions for NASA International Space Station Commercial Resupply Services CRS-22 and CRS-25, along with Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, O3B mPOWER-A, PSN Satria, Telkomsat Merah Putih 2, Galileo L13, and Koreasat-6A.

The company has completed 487 total missions of which 475 were Falcon 9 launches. Of those, 418 included Starlink deployments and 448 completed successful return landings.

FMI:  www.spacex.com/