For SpaceUpClose.com & RocketSTEM
PORT CANAVERAL/CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – With Pelicans patrolling under gloomy overcast skies the extremely sooty 9x flown to space and back SpaceX Falcon 9 recovered booster from the Starlink 4-1 mission was towed into Port Canaveral, Thursday morning, Nov. 18, standing upright upon the droneship it landed on post launch Nov. 13 and just ahead of another batch of thunderstorms inundating the Sunshine State’s Space Coast region.
Overall this thoroughly scorched 1st stage booster arrival from the Starlink 4-1 launch counts as the second arrival in just four days this week – following Sunday’s arrival of a relatively clean 1st stage from the Crew-3 launch.
9x flown first stage booster B1058.9 successfully soft-landed on the Just Read the Instructions (JRTI) drone ship as planned some eight and a half minutes after Nov. 13 liftoff – making 87 successful booster landings overall.
JRTI was positioned off the Carolina’s coast ahead of launch.
The scorched 15-story-tall upright landed booster B1058.9 standing fully erect with all four landing legs deployed was towed by tug Finn Falgout into the mouth of Port Canaveral past Jetty Park Pier around 8 a.m. Thursday morning.
9x flown 2space & back #SpaceX #Falcon9 booster B1058 towed this morn into @PortCanaveral atop JRTI droneship under v gloomy wx Nov18. Photos soon after berthing-with Pelican reconn + just before drenching rain soon after:Ken Kremer & Jean Wright#Starlink 4-1 launch Sat Nov13 pic.twitter.com/V0PTd2AYJs
— Ken Kremer🇺🇦🇩🇪🇺🇸🚀🧪 (@ken_kremer) November 18, 2021
Be sure to check out our Falcon 9 B1058 JRTI and Bob arrival photos from Nov. 18 from the Space UpClose team of Ken Kremer and Jean Wright.
Bob and Falcon 9 arrived for berthing at SpaceX’s normal spot at North Cargo Pier 6 by mid-morning and the crews completed the docking at port before 10 a.m.
Support ship ‘Bob’ had already arrived a few hours earlier overnight carrying the two fairing halves hoisted from the Atlantic Ocean waters.
Both fairings were covered by blue tarps loaded on deck of Bob by the huge hoisting crane.
‘Bob’ is named to honor veteran NASA Astronaut Bob Behnken who flew to space on the history making Demo-2 mission last year in May 2020 – finally resuming US human spaceflight from US soil after a way too long hiatus following the forced shutdown of NASA’s Space Shuttle program after the final mission STS-135 in July 2011.
Bob berthed beside crewmates Doug support ship that arrived earlier in this week when it towed the Crew-3 recovered Falcon 9 into Port Canaveral on Sunday.
Bob and Doug made for quite a stellar sight docked beside one another at SpaceX’s North Cargo Pier location
Soon after JRTI berthed rain squalls drenched the Port and Space Coast with hours long inundating showers.
After pausing a few hours the crane crews finally caught a weather break and quickly attached the hoisting cap to the top Thursday evening and craned B1058.9 off JRTI and onto the ground work stand pedestal.
During r Zarrella's Italian & Wood Fired Pizza space fans & friends dinner & misty rain outside crane crew craned just returned 9x flown/recovered #SpaceX #Falcon9 booster B1058 off JRTI to behind ugly cargo ship-hiding landing legs!
However Bob & Doug still look stellar at nite pic.twitter.com/XV4Yj72JGf— Ken Kremer🇺🇦🇩🇪🇺🇸🚀🧪 (@ken_kremer) November 19, 2021
By the next night all 4 landing legs were all raised and retracted and the booster was lowered onto the transporter and shipped back to the Cape for whats sure to be the 10th launch at some point in the future
B1058 joins two other 10x flown boosters – which was SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s initial goal for rocket recycling with the Block 5 Falcon 9
Blastoff of the recycled SpaceX Falcon 9 on the Starlink 4-1 mission took place right on time punching through deep Cape fog at 7:19:30 a.m. EST (1219:30 GMT) from Space Launch Complex-40 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida during an instantaneous launch window.
The launch was delayed a day from Friday because of poor local Cape launch and downrange booster recovery weather.
Enjoy our Starlink 4-1 mission pre-launch and launch photos from the Space UpClose team of Ken Kremer and Jean Wright
SpaceX plans a busy December manifest of Falcon 9 missions with another Starlink, and NASA’s IXPE science mission and CRS-24 cargo resupply mission to the ISS.
Ken’s post launch comments about Crew-3 and Starlink preview and Falcon 9 rocket photos were featured on local ABC WFTV, NBC WESH 2 and Fox 35 TV News outlets in Orlando on Nov. 10 & 11:
https://www.wftv.com/news/local/crew-3-set-dock-iss-ahead-schedule/WTWJDQPWPVCKZIRHW6Y7QMNCOY/
https://www.wesh.com/article/crew-3-launch-wednesday/38212223
Ken and Jean are onsite at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Port Canaveral for the mission launch and booster return campaign
Watch Ken’s continuing reports about SpaceX Crew and Cargo Dragons, Artemis, SLS, Orion and NASA missions, Lucy Asteroid mission, Blue Origin and Space Tourism, SpaceX Starlink, Commercial Crew and Starliner and Crew Dragon and onsite for live reporting of upcoming and recent SpaceX and ULA launches including Crew 1 & 2 & 3, ISS, Solar Orbiter, Mars 2020 Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, NRO spysats and national security missions and more at the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter @ken_kremer – email: ken at kenkremer.com
Dr. Kremer is a research scientist and journalist based in the KSC area, active in outreach and interviewed regularly on TV and radio about space topics.
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