We hear a lot about SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets launching and landing multiple times, but what about the infrastructure that makes it possible?
A key part of the Falcon 9 missions involve droneships stationed in the ocean. These floating barges function as a landing platform for the returning first-stage Falcon 9 boosters when the mission profile means the rocket will have to land at sea rather than back at the launch site.
SpaceX has three of these barges — two in Florida for launches from the Kennedy Space Center, and one in California for flights that lift off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
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The droneships have rather creative names, too: Of Course I Still Love You, Just Read The Instructions, and A Shortfall of Gravitas.
In a mission on Thursday that deployed SiriusXM’s SXM-9 communications satellite, one of the droneships, Just Read The Instructions, reached a notable milestone by hosting its 100th successful landing. SpaceX shared a video of the booster’s touchdown, which you can watch below.
Falcon 9 landing confirmed, marking the 100th time a first stage booster has landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship and our 380th successful recovery overall pic.twitter.com/yyoNjHXZfs
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 5, 2024
The Just Read The Instructions droneship didn’t have the best start. It was first deployed on January 17, 2016, during the Falcon 9 flight for the Jason-3 mission. Although the booster managed to land on the droneship, a problem with one of its landing legs caused it to tip over and explode. The droneship was left a bit battered and a tad burned, but the damage was easily fixed and Just Read The Instructions was able to sail again.
The first successful landing for the vessel took place in January 2017 and marked the first successful booster recovery on a droneship located in the Pacific Ocean.
Just Read The Instructions was moved to Florida in December 2019 and since then has been used for missions launched from the East Coast.
To date, the Of Course I Still Love You droneship has hosted the greatest number of successful landings at 112, while A Shortfall of Gravitas has hosted 88.
After a booster lands on one of SpaceX’s droneships, it’s taken back to land where engineers check it over and refurbish it so that it can fly again. Just this week we saw one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 boosters fly for a record 24th time. This method of reusing a booster instead of building a new one for every mission allows SpaceX to make its satellite deployment services more affordable, and also cuts costs for NASA, which pays SpaceX for crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station.