#f9024

Recovered Falcon 9 completes full-duration engine firing for the first time.

Less than two months after flying into space and safely landing on the droneship, the JCSAT-14 Falcon 9 first stage successfully completed a full-duration engine firing yesterday, July 28, at SpaceX’s test facility in McGregor, Texas. This marks the first time a recovered rocket’s engines have been reignighted

Securely fastened to its test stand, F9-024 fired its nine Merlin 1D engines for over two minutes and 27 seconds, the full-duration the first stage fires in flight. Attached to the top of the vehicle was a test rig designed to simulate dynamic pressures encountered in flight. The rig exerts the same force on the top of the vehicle that it would encounter by the atmosphere while ascending.  F9-024 took the most damage of any of the five stages SpaceX has recovered. As such, the company is using it as a technological benchmark vehicle, showing engineers what the limits of the vehicles are in order to maximize the lifespan of the boosters. The JCSAT-14 first stage will not be the first Falcon 9 to be reflown; that distinction will go to F9-023, the first stage from April’s CRS-8 mission. Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of flight reliability for SpaceX, mentioned at the CRS-9 launch that the booster is likely to be reflown on a mission in fourth quarter 2016. 

Three’s Company - JCSAT-14 Falcon 9 arrives at LC-39A.

Eight days after lofting the JCSAT-14 satellite to orbit, Falcon 9 #024 arrived at the Horizontal Integration Facility at LC-39A late Saturday afternoon (May 14).

In the photos above released by SpaceX, the three recovered rocket stages can be seen in the HIF where they have been undergoing disassembly, thorough inspection, and testing. F9-024 - JCSAT-14 - is in the middle, flanked by F9-021 (Orbcomm OG2) on left and F9-023 (CRS-8) on right.

The second picture shows the aft end of each rocket, with Orbcomm on the left, JCSAT-14 center, and CRS-8 on right. It’s interesting to compare the level of disassembly of the prior two recovered stages. Falcon 9′s nine Merlin 1D engines have been entirely removed from F9-023, while the same five engines from F9-021 first seen missing in April are still removed. It is believed that the engines from both Orbcomm and CRS-8 will be tested at the company’s McGregor facility before returning to the cape for reintegration and, in the case of F9-023, reflight.

Also note that both previously recovered rockets are missing the aerodynamic grid fins, which help direct the rocket as it falls through the atmosphere towards a precision landing on the droneship.

Initial inspection of F9-024 - JCSAT-14  - once it arrived in the HIF showed that the stage experienced what Elon Musk called “maximum damage.” Since Falcon 9 delivered JCSAT-14 to Geostationary Transfer orbit, the rocket landed at twice the speed and with eight times the energy of a normal landing.

The one that was supposed to crash but didn’t and the one that wasn’t supposed to crash but always did - JCSAT-14′s Falcon 9 first stage passes by the Navaho missile display outside the south gate of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station earlier today (May 14).

Concluding five days of safing procedures and leg removal, Falcon 9 will now be inspected and tested at LC-39A’s Horizontal Integration Facility before lofting another payload into orbit later this year.

Awaiting entry into Port Canaveral Monday evening, the JCSAT-14 Falcon 9 rocket dead-center on Of Course I Still Love You sits in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cocoa Beach. The tug Elsbeth III, one of the ASDS’ tug boats, can be seen on right.

Less than eight hours after arriving into Port Canaveral late last night, Falcon 9 024 has already been offloaded from Of Course I Still Love You and onto its wharfside work platform. 

Engineers are now inspecting the upper portions of the rocket as well as preparing its avionics for eventual transport to LC-39A. Starting early tomorrow, teams will begin removal of the rocket's four landing legs, which are unable to fold back up once deployed.

Since F9024 is the second Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX has successfully landed on the drone ship, ground teams are able to process the vehicle faster than on CRS-8, the first rocket to be processed wharfside.

94 hours after launch, F9-024 has officially berthed at the SpaceX wharf at Port Canaveral!