1st Recovered and Upgraded Block 5 Falcon 9 SpaceX Booster Sails into Port Canaveral: Photos

1^st launched and soft landing recovered SpaceX Block 5 Falcon 9 booster arrives atop OCISLY droneship at dawn May 15 morning into Port Canaveral, Fl sailing through rough seas, high winds and completely overcast skies – as seen from the ports Jetty Park Pier barely four days after May 11 blastoff with Bangabandhu-1 comsat from pad 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Ken Kremer  --   SpaceUpClose.com  --   19 May 2018

PORT CANAVERAL, FL –  Four days after the beautiful blastoff and subsequent successful sea-based drone ship landing of the 1^st upgraded Block 5 version of SpaceX’s workhorse commercial Falcon 9 rocket on Friday, May 11, from the Florida Space Coast, the recovered first stage booster sailed superbly into her home base at Port Canaveral at dawn Tuesday, May 15. UPDATED May 26

This widely revamped version of the Falcon 9 is also critically important to America’s future in space because this US rocket will also soon launch US astronauts back to space and the space station from US soil – hopefully later this year or early in 2019.  

1^st Recovered SpaceX Block 5 Falcon 9 goes airborne 2^nd time after being hoisted off OCISLY drone ship on May 15, 2018 onto ground work pedestal after sailing into Port Canaveral, FL.  Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Enjoy our eyewitness SpaceUpClose.com photo gallery of the Falcon 9 boosters ocean based platform return to America’s Premier Spaceport!

SpaceX Navy tows 1^st launched and soft landing recovered Block 5 Falcon 9 booster arrives atop OCISLY droneship at dawn May 15 morning into Port Canaveral, Fl sailing through rough seas, high winds and completely overcast skies – as seen from the ports Jetty Park Pier barely four days after May 11 blastoff with Bangabandhu-1 comsat from pad 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

This story and imagery are belatedly online here due to my need to travel later the same day to NASA’s eastern Virginia shore launch base at Wallops Island to see the upcoming launch of the Orbital ATK Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus cargo freighter on the OA-9 resupply mission for NASA to the International Space Station (ISS). 

SpaceX Navy tows 1^st recovered Block 5 Falcon 9 booster arriving atop OCISLY droneship at dawn May 15 morning into Port Canaveral, Fl – as seen from Jetty Park Pier four days after May 11 blastoff with Bangabandhu-1 comsat from pad 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Poor weather apparently caused some changes to the boosters arrival time back into port – but it was nevertheless a marvelous sight to behold a used rocket returning from the sea after its maiden delivery trip to the edge of space and back.

Recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 booster arrives at dawn at the mouth of Port Canaveral May 15 sailing atop OCISLY drone ship as seen by spectators from Jetty Park Pier four days after May 11 blastoff with Bangabandhu-1 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Rough seas, chilly temperatures, completely overcast skies, misty sprays and high winds greeted the small SpaceX fleet of tugboats, vessels and a very special ‘drone ship’ as they carefully approached the mouth of Port Canaveral and Tug Rachel towed the now ‘Flight-Proven’ first stage booster.

I witnessed the boosters arrival from out at the end of the Jetty Park Pier as it approached around 7 a.m. EDT Tuesday morning May 15 – initially barely visible just as a distant speck on the horizon and which gradually grew larger in appearance as it cruised in closer from out in the Atlantic Ocean.

UpClose look at landing legs and base of 1^st droneship recovered SpaceX Block 5 Falcon 9 sailing into Port Canaveral at dawn May 15 anchored to deck, four days after May 11 blastoff with Bangabandhu-1 comsat from pad 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Some eight minutes after successfully launching Bangabandhu-1 on May 11, the first ever geostationary communications satellite for the nation of Bangladesh, the first stage accomplished a precision guided soft landing onto the deck of the drone ship named ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ or OCISLY for short, by reigniting a subset of the 9 Merlin 1D first stage engines.

OCISLY had been prepositioned in the Atlantic Ocean some 400 miles (640 km) offshore of Florida’s East Coast days before the launch.

The new black and white paint scheme made it easier to spot the booster far out at sea as well as track it accelerating to space during the spectacular launch.

The 15-story tall and now rather sooty used booster with landing legs fully deployed was clearly anchored to the surface of the drone ship - firmly clasped in the grip of the multipronged robot nicknamed ‘Roomba’ with additional hold down support cabling to prevent it from sliding overboard and crashing into the sea or tipping over and smashing onto the deck amidst the ever constant and mighty ocean waves.   

Furthermore, the 156-foot-tall booster appeared to have touched down fully erect on the OCISILY platform at sea. No tilt was visible to my eyes as had been the case on a few prior drone ship recoveries and returns.  

Once it arrived, the tug hauled Falcon 9 and OCISLY navigated majestically through the narrow channel of Post Canaveral - seen by a small crowd of us.  Due to the choppy waves, colder temps and early hour there were only a smidgen of folks, boaters and pleasure craft there to watch as it floated relentlessly by.

Attaching the heavily modified interstage hoisting cap to 1st upgraded to Falcon 9 Block5 booster  launched and recovered by SpaceX workers on the newly arrived OCISLY droneship floating into Port Canaveral, FL on May 15, 2018. Note the grid fins.  Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

By around 8:30 a.m. EDT OCISLY had arrived at its interior docking location nearer the commercial cruise ship terminals.

Ground crews soon got to work and craned a new hi tech multifacted, bowl-shaped hoisting cap and extension rod into place atop the black interstage and grid fins- that seemed to emit blue laser lighting.  

Up close view shows hi-tech bowl-shaped hoisting cap thats apparently equipped with self-latching bolts/guide mechanics as it was craned into place for attachment to the interstage atop newly improved SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 recovered booster after sailing into Port Canaveral for hoisting off OCISLY droneship on May 15 following May 11 Bangabandhu-1 comsat launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral.  Note the grid fins. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Then they removed the Roomba gripper and assorted cabling holding the stage in place atop OCISLY.

Unlike with the Block 3 and 4 Falcon’s no crews were hoisted on cherry pickers to the top to assist in bolting the heavily modified hoisting cap firmly in place. It was apparently equipped with self-latching bolts/guide mechanics that obviated the need for work crews to manually join and/or guide it in place.

The procedure all went much faster than for prior booster recoveries.

Then by around 11:00 a.m. the booster went airborne for a second time ! 

Up close view shows landing legs and base of 1^st droneship recovered SpaceX Block 5 Falcon 9 being hoisted off OCISLY drone ship on May 15, 2018 after sailing into Port Canaveral after May 11 blastoff with Bangabandhu-1 comsat from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Workers hoisted the Block 5 Falcon 9 first stage off OCISLY, methodically rotated it around and then swung it over and on to a mounting pedestal positioned on the ground station leased by SpaceX at Port Canaveral.

Altogether the offloading and craning operation took about 20 minutes to hoist Falcon 9 off the drone ship and firmly place it on the circular pedestal.

The next step was to remove the 4 landing legs.

In contrast to what Elon Musk had explained at a prelaunch briefing, the legs were not simply retracted - which would have saved considerable time and effort.

Instead each landing leg was removed piecemeal – akin to an insects dissection - about two days later. 

Up Close view of a trio of Grid Fins on recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 emblazoned with the American Flag sailing through Port Canaveral, FL, after Bangabandhu-1 launch May 11, 2018. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Eventually the booster was lowered horizontally with attached cables and placed onto the multi-wheel transporter for shipment back to SpaceX hangar processing facilities on the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  

Welcome to Jetty Park .. Speed Limit 10. Recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 from Bangabandhu-1 launch floats by Port Canaveral, FL greeting on May 15, 2018. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/spaceupclose.com

Musk said at the media briefing that this particular maiden Block 5 would be at least partially disassembled, so that engineers can conduct a rigorous inspection of the entire booster from top to bottom - to determine the fate and state of the numerous upgrades and manufacturing and assembly improvements and evaluate whether they performed as expected or if any changes are required.

He also said it could lift off again in a few months with a new customer.

Additionally the Falcon 9 Block 5 model is designed for 10 launch recycles with very minimal maintenance in between, Musk stated.

Watch for Ken’s continuing onsite coverage of NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK and more space and mission reports direct from the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida and Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia.

Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news: www.kenkremer.com –www.spaceupclose.com – twitter @ken_kremer - ken at kenkremer.com

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