NASA Seems Open To Even More Re-Uses Of SpaceX Booster Rockets

The International Space Station tweeted Sunday that a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft was expected to arrive early Monday morning. 'Get up early and catch live coverage of the rendezvous and capture on nasa.gov/live beginning at 5:30 a.m. EDT.'

But Teslarati reports that there's also good news about its booster rocket:

SpaceX has safely returned Falcon 9 booster B1056 to port and lifted the rocket ashore after successfully supporting Cargo Dragon's 18th mission to the International Space Station. B1056's safe return is by no means a surprise, but it is still a relief after mild issues caused Falcon Heavy center core B1055 to topple over just a few weeks prior. SpaceX's robotic 'Octagrabber' was visibly attached to newest Falcon 9 booster, taking advantage of compatibility not available to the Falcon Heavy core. According to NASA and SpaceX, the booster's recovery was weighing on the minds of both stakeholders thanks to interest in reusing B1056 on future Cargo Dragon launches....

SpaceX VP of Flight Reliability Hans Koenigsmann noted that SpaceX is moving to a concept of operations where booster recovery is just as important and just as necessary as any other technical aspect of launch. In other words, when SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You suffered a rare hardware failure that hobbled its redundant power supplies, NASA had no qualms with the company's decision to scrub the launch attempt. In fact, confirming educated speculation previously published on Teslarati, NASA had a 'vested interest' in the successful recovery of B1056. According to NASA ISS manager Kenny Todd's comments, NASA unequivocally wants SpaceX to fly its next Cargo Dragon mission -- CRS-18, NET mid-July -- on the newly flight-proven booster. NASA is even open to flying on B1056 for a third time on CRS-19, pending the condition and availability of the booster.
Unique in SpaceX's Falcon 9 Block 5 fleet thanks to an exceptionally gentle reentry and recovery, B1056 should easily lend itself to multiple reuses in support of future NASA missions. In fact, of the three (up to as many as five) additional CRS1 Cargo Dragon missions still on contract, there is no immediate technical reason to assume that Falcon 9 B1056 can't be involved in a majority of those launches, if not all of them. NASA, of course, has the final say in which Falcon 9s their missions launch on, but the agency's apparent openness to launching on a twice-flown booster opens the door for thrice-flown boosters and beyond.

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