Good Monday morning, friends. It’s your Space Coast correspondent James Sparvero.
Not long ago, launches on back-to-back days would’ve been a big enough headline in itself but in this era of breaking records year-after-year, may I present to you another newsworthy take away. It’s the whole reason why SpaceX can launch so frequently in the first place.
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The beautiful launch on Saturday night was the 20th and final flight for that particular Falcon 9 rocket booster. You have to go back to November 2022 for the last time SpaceX didn’t land and recover a booster (146 missions ago!). SpaceX said given all the fuel the rocket needed to deliver a pair of European satellites to a higher orbit, it wouldn’t be able to land this time.
With reaching the 20th flight milestone, SpaceX also told us it’s working to get its fleet of rockets to fly up to 40 times. I remember the first time SpaceX launched a pre-flown Falcon 9 in 2017. Back then, COO Gwynne Shotwell told us at a press conference a rocket’s life expectancy would be 10 launches!
Expanding reusability continues to be the model for more and more launches breaking yearly totals from the Space Coast again and again. SpaceX also mentioned how reuse of Falcon 9 rockets will ultimately help with Starship missions. The mega-rocket going to the moon and Mars is designed to be fully reusable.
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👋 Here’s a little bit more about me.
Little did I know when watching Apollo 13 in the third grade that 20 years later, I was destined for a thrilling career as your Space Coast multimedia journalist.
Chemistry and biology weren’t so interesting to me in high school science, but I loved my Earth and Space class (Thanks, Mr. Lang).
Then in 2016, I traded Capitol correspondent in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for space correspondent. I’m proud that my first live report at News 6 happened to be the first time SpaceX landed a Falcon 9 booster on a barge. What seems so routine now was a really big deal that day in our newsroom!
From there, I’ve covered the Commercial Crew program and the return of human spaceflight to Kennedy Space Center (Demo-2 launched on my 33rd birthday!)
Now, as our coverage looks forward to missions to the moon and Mars, I often tell others I have the best job in local news. Because after all I’ve seen so far, I think I would be bored working somewhere else. I even bought a house near the Cape with a great view to the north so I never miss a launch even when I’m not working.
After eight years on the beat, though, I still consider myself a young space reporter and I always look forward to learning something new with every assignment.
Have a great launch into the rest of your week!
