If you're not living under a rock, you will know that SpaceX's Falcon 9 has revolutionized spaceflight by introducing reusability. Such an effort has sparked a wave of interest and competition, with other major space companies like China and Blue Origin also developing their own reusable rockets.
Unlike traditional rockets that are discarded after a single launch, Falcon 9's first stage is designed to land back on Earth, undergo inspection and refurbishment, and be reused for future missions. An approach that has significantly reduced launch costs, making space exploration a lot more accessible.
The Savings
Based on SpaceX's estimate of a marginal cost of $15 million (£11M) for a Falcon 9 booster in the best-case scenario, we can analyze the cost savings achieved through reusability.
Original Cost: A brand new Falcon 9 booster is approximately $50 million. (£37M)
Marginal Cost: The best-case marginal cost is $15 million. (£11M)
Refurbishing: The cost to reburbish a rocovered booster is only $250,000 (£188,000), according to Space X.
Percentage Savings: 70% reduction in cost compared to the original price.
Space X informs the public: "you're roughly even with 2 flights, definitely ahead with 3"
The B1062 F9 Booster reused 23 times!
The B1062 booster became the first booster to fly twenty times on 13 April 2024, twenty-one times on 18 May 2024, twenty-two times on 27 June 2024, and twenty-three times on 28 August 2024.
This was B1062's 23rd and final flight, which went out with a bang.
After successfully delivering the second stage and payload into space, the booster attempted to land on the autonomous drone ship. But immediately upon landing, there was a sizeable fire beneath the booster's engines, and the booster toppled over, resulting in its destruction.
The landing failure ended a streak of 267 consecutive successful landings for SpaceX and was the first booster to fail on landing since February 16, 2021!
And saved Space X roughly $1B. Yes, billion with a B.
Bye for now.