SpaceX to dispose of B1060 on its 20th flight

SCANALYZER The Happening World
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SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 with two EU Galileo navigation satellites on 2024-04-28 at 00:34 UTC. It will launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first stage booster, B1060, will be making its 20th flight, after a turnaround time of 35 days since its last mission. Recovery will not be attempted. The last two Galileo launches were 2021-05-12 using a Soyuz ST-B/Fregat-MT and 2018-07-25 using an Ariane 5 ES. This launch and a second in July are intended to carry Galileo until the Ariane 62 is available. B1060 will join B1062 as the two boosters to have made 20 launches.

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I’m a little surprised at this. One might think there would be at least some “wear & tear” information worth gleaning and maybe some usable parts for subsequent vehicles. I don’t know. Maybe things are different in rocket science compared to automobiles. The latter’s individual parts are considerably more costly when taken individually and totaled up, compared to a fully-assembled new car.

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I’m not. If a target orbit/payload combination is too much for regular water recovery, the next bigger kit is Falcon Heavy. That’s quite a big jump in cost.

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