NASA has confirmed that SpaceX’s upcoming Falcon 9 rocket is now scheduled to launch no later than 3:37 am EDT (07:37 UTC) on Saturday, August 28.
Known as CRS-23, the mission to supply cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) is popular for two main reasons. Most importantly, the CRS-23 will mark SpaceX’s first reuse of the upgraded Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft. Meanwhile, this reuse will coincide with another milestone when SpaceX breaks the internal record for orbital spacecraft conversion later this month.
Second, to the surprise of almost everyone watching from the sidelines, SpaceX’s most recent launch took place on June 30 – In the first half of 2021. One step away from the technical details of the mission, CRS-23 will be, in other words, SpaceX’s first launch in nearly two months—a gap we haven’t seen in two years.
The last time SpaceX went two months or so between launches was in August 2019, when the company took more than three months for unknown reasons. Prior to this unexpected lull, the only other time in the last half-decade that SpaceX had delayed was more than a few weeks after the disastrous Falcon 9 launch and continuous fire failures in June 2015 and September 2016 – both of which took 4-6 months. to recover.
In other words, the long gap between SpaceX launches is rare and, on average, against the company’s wishes. Recently, there has been some indication that the Army-operated Florida launch range is out of order for most of July 2021 to complete routine maintenance. However, according to tracking Boeing’s second unmanned Starliner flight to launch in mid-August before the mission was canceled indefinitely, the range appears to be reopening sometime earlier this month. After completing a staggering 20 Falcon 9 orbital launches in the first half of the year, the second half of 2021 is just the opposite for SpaceX.
Given reports that CEO Elon Musk ordered a temporary mass exodus of hundreds of SpaceX employees at another facility to the Boca Chica, Texas “Starbus,” it’s likely Musk effectively sacrificed Starlink’s unrelenting launch rhythm to speed the spacecraft’s path into orbit. However, anything beyond the fact that SpaceX hasn’t launched since June 30 is speculation. Ultimately, CRS-23 is on track to be SpaceX’s first orbital launch in 59 days.
For CRS-23, the mission will see SpaceX reuse the Crew Dragon 2 and Crew Dragon spacecraft for the first time. The Dragon 2 capsule, known as C208, was first identified in December 2020 and returned safely from orbit to Earth nearly 40 days later on January 14, 2021. Now, at least according to one Traditional mission patch Built for the CRS-23, the Cargo Dragon C208 capsule is slated to be relaunched into orbit in less than eight months – likely to break the Dragon capsule turnaround record of 102 days (>30%).
In approximately 226 days from orbital reentry and collapse to the next orbital launch, reuse of the CRS-23 Dragon 2 C208 capsule will be nearly twice as fast as the fastest reuse of Dragon 1 capsule (418 days), demonstrating what SpaceX describes as significant. improvement in Dragon 1 capsule reuse.
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