NASA has confirmed that SpaceX’s subsequent Falcon 9 launch is now scheduled to happen no sooner than 3:37 am EDT (07:37 UTC) on Saturday, August twenty eighth.
Generally known as CRS-23, the cargo resupply mission to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) is noteworthy for 2 main causes. Most significantly, CRS-23 will mark SpaceX’s first-ever reuse of an upgraded Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft. Concurrently, that reuse milestone will coincide with one other when SpaceX smashes its inner report for orbital spacecraft turnaround later this month.
Second, a lot to the shock of just about everybody watching from the sidelines, SpaceX’s final launch occurred on June thirtieth – within the first half of 2021. One step faraway from the mission’s technical specifics, CRS-23 will, in different phrases, even be SpaceX’s first launch in nearly two months – a niche not seen in two years.
The final time SpaceX went two or extra months between launches was in August 2019, when the corporate took a greater than three-month hiatus for unknown causes. Previous to that surprising pause, the one different occasions within the final half-decade that SpaceX has stopped launching for greater than a handful of weeks was after catastrophic Falcon 9 launch and static hearth failures in June 2015 and September 2016 – each of which took 4-6 months to get better from.
In different phrases, lengthy gaps between SpaceX launches are each uncommon and, on common, in opposition to the corporate’s will. Most not too long ago, there have been some indicators that the military-run Florida launch vary was down for many of July 2021 to finish routine upkeep. Nonetheless, per Boeing’s second uncrewed Starliner flight take a look at monitoring in the direction of a mid-August launch earlier than that mission was scrubbed indefinitely, the vary clearly reopened someday earlier this month. After finishing a spectacular 20 orbital Falcon 9 launches within the first half of the 12 months, although, the second half of 2021 has been precisely the other for SpaceX.
Given experiences that CEO Elon Musk ordered a brief mass-emigration of a whole bunch of SpaceX staff at different services to the corporate’s Boca Chica, Texas “Starbase,” it’s attainable that Musk is successfully sacrificing a sustained Starlink launch cadence to expedite Starship’s path to orbit. Nonetheless, something past the easy proven fact that SpaceX hasn’t launched since June thirtieth is theory. In the end, CRS-23 is on monitor to be SpaceX’s first orbital launch in 59 days.
As for CRS-23, the mission will see SpaceX reuse its upgraded Crew Dragon-derived Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft for the primary time. Generally known as C208, the Dragon 2 capsule in query debuted in December 2020 and safely returned from orbit to Earth nearly 40 days afterward January 14th, 2021. Now, no less than in line with one of many conventional mission patches created for CRS-23, Cargo Dragon capsule C208 is scheduled to launch to orbit once more lower than eight months later – probably smashing the report for Dragon capsule turnaround by 102 days (>30%).
At ~226 days from orbital reentry and splashdown to its subsequent orbital launch, Dragon 2 capsule C208’s CRS-23 reuse will probably be nearly twice as quick because the quickest Dragon 1 capsule reuse (418 days), demonstrating what SpaceX has described as important enhancements in reusability.
