SpaceX fairing recovery program

Ms. Tree
Ms. Tree during its second successful catch of a fairing in 2019
History
Name
  • Ms. Tree since June 2019
  • Mr. Steven 2014–2019
Owner
  • Guice Offshore June 2019–present
  • SeaTran Marine 2014–2019
OperatorGuice Offshore
BuilderGulf Craft
ChristenedNovember 2014
Identification
General characteristics
TypePlatform supply vessel
Tonnage
Length205 ft (62 m)
Beam34 ft (10 m)
Draft5 ft (1.5 m)
Depth13 ft (4.0 m)
Installed power10,300 bhp (7,700 kW)
Propulsion4 × Cat 3516C DH
Speed32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Capacity84 (maximum)
Notes[1][2][3]

The SpaceX fairing recovery program was an experimental program by SpaceX, begun in 2017 in an effort to determine if it might be possible to economically recover and reuse expended launch vehicle payload fairings from suborbital space. The experimental program became an operational program as, by late 2020, the company was routinely recovering fairings from many flights, and by 2021 were successfully refurbishing and reflying previously flown fairings on the majority of their satellite launches.

During the early years of the program, SpaceX attempted to catch the descending payload fairings, under parachute, in a very large net on a moving ship in the Atlantic Ocean east of the Space Coast of Florida. Two former platform supply vessels—Ms. Tree, formerly known as Mr. Steven,[4] and its sister ship, Ms. Chief—were chartered by SpaceX and used 2018–2021[5] as experimental platforms for recovery of rocket fairings from Falcon 9 orbital launch trajectories. These fast ships were retrofitted with large nets intended to catch fairings—and prevent the fairings from making contact with seawater—as part of an iterative development program to create technology that will eventually allow rocket payload fairings to be economically reused and reflown. Ms. Tree was used for SpaceX Falcon 9 fairing recovery experiments on a number of occasions in 2018 and early 2019, while named Mr. Steven. Ms. Tree first successfully caught a fairing on 25 June 2019 during Falcon Heavy launch 3, which carried the DoD's STP-2 mission. This was the ship's first fairing recovery voyage after its renaming, change of ownership, and net upgrade.[4] By 2020, the program reached operational status where fairings from most Falcon 9 satellite launches were recovered, either "in the net" or from the water, and for the first time, both fairing halves of a single flight were caught in the nets of two different ships. The final fairing that was successfully caught in a net was in October 2020.[6] In early 2021, the nets were removed from the two fast ships and SpaceX ended the ship leases, with both ships returned to their owner.

SpaceX found that recovery of the fairings floating on the ocean surface was adequate to support economic reuse of payload fairings on subsequent Falcon 9 launches.[5] After the end of the experimental "catch" recovery program, SpaceX entered an operational phase and as of April 2021 was using the contracted[7] ships Shelia Bordelon and Hos Briarwood[8] to recover parachute-descended payload fairings that reached the sea surface in good condition using ship mounted cranes.

In May 2021, SpaceX purchased and began converting two offshore supply ships named Ella G and Ingrid for towing and supporting droneships as well as fairing recovery operations on the east coast. They are registered to Falcon Landing LLC, a SpaceX-linked company that also owns Elon Musk's private jet. These two ships were renamed in honor of Demo-2 astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken as Doug[9] and Bob[10] respectively for their contribution to SpaceX's Crew Dragon development.[11] Currently, both support ships Bob and Doug are operating out of Port Canaveral, Florida along with other SpaceX recovery assets. To ease the recovery of these fairings out of water, SpaceX bought two small fast boats in February 2022, Maverick and Goose, named for Top Gun characters Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and Nick "Goose" Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), for both of these multipurpose ships.[12]

SpaceX performs some amount of cleaning and refurbishing before using the previously flown fairings on a subsequent flight. SpaceX has reflown fairing halves more than 300 times, with some being reflown for eleven or more times.[13]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference spec1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference spec2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference spec3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference trati20190625 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Eric Berger (9 April 2021). "Rocket Report: SpaceX abandons catching fairings". Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference nsf20200309 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ SpaceX Starlink webcast Archived 29 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine, 29 April 2021, at T-10:30
  8. ^ "Shelia Bordelon". Archived from the original on 9 May 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2021.
  9. ^ "DOUG (Offshore Supply Ship) Registered in USA - Vessel details, Current position and Voyage information - IMO 9529889, MMSI 368485000, Call Sign WDF2598". www.marinetraffic.com. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2021.
  10. ^ "Ship BOB (Offshore Supply Ship) Registered in USA - Vessel details, Current position and Voyage information - IMO 9529695, MMSI 368456000, Call Sign WDE9523". www.marinetraffic.com. Archived from the original on 2 January 2022. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
  11. ^ "[UPDATE: New Pictures] Scoop: SpaceX purchases and outfits two ships, potentially for fairing recovery". Space Explored. 12 August 2021. Archived from the original on 2 January 2022. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
  12. ^ @SpaceOffshore (7 March 2022). "One of these new SpaceX fast boats has had its tracker turned on and these boats do have names!Introducing... Mav…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  13. ^ "In 2023, SpaceX completed 96 successful missions, safely flew 12 more astronauts to orbit, launched two flight tests of Starship, and more than doubled the number of people around the world connected by @Starlink. Watch @elonmusk deliver a company update:". X (formerly Twitter). Archived from the original on 13 January 2024. Retrieved 14 January 2024.