{"id":9763,"date":"2025-08-27T23:17:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T15:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-completes-400th-falcon-booster-landing-on-a-drone-ship\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T23:17:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T15:17:53","slug":"spacex-completes-400th-falcon-booster-landing-on-a-drone-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-completes-400th-falcon-booster-landing-on-a-drone-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX completes 400th Falcon booster landing on a drone ship"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_70700\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-70700\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-70700\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827_B1095-2_JRTI_landing.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"456\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827_B1095-2_JRTI_landing.jpg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827_B1095-2_JRTI_landing-300x156.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250827_B1095-2_JRTI_landing-768x400.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-70700\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster completes a landing on the droneship, \u2018Just Read the Instructions,\u2019 during the Starlink 10-56 mission on Aug. 27, 2025. The recovery was the 400th landing of an orbital class rocket. Image: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Falcon 9 rocket placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit shortly after sunrise on Wednesday and scored the 400th successful drone ship landing for SpaceX\u2019s reusable first stage booster.<\/p>\n<p>The achievement came about eight and a half minutes into the Starlink 10-56 mission, which lifted off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:10 a.m. EDT (1110 UTC).<\/p>\n<p>The B1095 first stage booster, making its second flight, touched down on the drone ship \u2018Just Read the Instructions\u2019 (JRTI) stationed in the Atlantic Ocean east of the Carolinas.<\/p>\n<p>The majority of the 400 aquatic landings have occurred on SpaceX\u2019s drone ship, \u2018Of Course I Still Love You\u2019 (OCISLY), which along with JRTI entered service in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>The first successful recovery of a Falcon 9 actually occurred on land in December 2015. It wasn\u2019t until the launch of SpaceX\u2019s eighth Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-8) mission to the International Space Station on April 8, 2016, that the company managed to successfully land at sea. The successful landing on OCISLY followed a string of failed attempts, including one that damaged beyond repair the first drone ship to bear the name JRTI.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7pUAydjne5M?si=5WDPKAH6CcBjXdnm\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s fleet of now three drone ships, which include \u2018A Shortfall of Gravitas,\u2019 are key to SpaceX\u2019s ability to reuse its orbital rockets. In a mid-August post on X, formerly Twitter, Jon Edwards, SpaceX\u2019s vice president of Falcon and Dragon, touted the economic vitality of booster recovery for the company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s easy to become complacent in this situation, which is concerning (e.g., the tortoise and the hare), so we must keep challenging ourselves to achieve higher launch rates, greater lift capability, and higher levels of rapid reusability,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cEventually our competitors will show up, but when they do, we must ensure they are still far behind in our rearview mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One of those competitors, Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin, also built its New Glenn rocket to have boosters that perform propulsive landings on a marine vessel. The company tried to land its first booster, dubbed \u2019So You\u2019re Telling Me There\u2019s A Chance,\u2019 during its first flight in January 2025, but that proved unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin will try again during its second launch, using the booster named \u2018Never Tell Me the Odds.\u2019 It will launch a pair of Mars-bound satellites for NASA and then aim to land on the vessel named \u2018Jacklyn,\u2019 after Bezos\u2019 mother.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_68462\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-68462\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-68462\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250112_NG_Jacklyn_ROV.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"657\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250112_NG_Jacklyn_ROV.jpeg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250112_NG_Jacklyn_ROV-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250112_NG_Jacklyn_ROV-678x509.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250112_NG_Jacklyn_ROV-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250112_NG_Jacklyn_ROV-326x245.jpeg 326w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/20250112_NG_Jacklyn_ROV-80x60.jpeg 80w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-68462\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Recovery Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) pictured on Blue Origin\u2019s landing vessel, named \u2018Jacklyn,\u2019 after founder Jeff Bezos\u2019 mother. ROV will deploy following a booster landing and provide power, communication and pneumatic links between the booster and Jacklyn, according to Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp. Image: Blue Origin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Similarly, Rocket Lab also plans to perform propulsive landings with its Neutron rocket using a 400-foot-long landing platform that\u2019s being built out by Bollinger Shipyards. The vessel called \u2018Return on Investment\u2019 is expected to debut in early 2026, according to a July 2025 statement from Rocket Lab. The company attempted a parachute recovery of the first stage of its Electron rocket. However plans to catch the descending rocket by helicopter did not work. Although boosters were subsequently fished out of the ocean after splashing down they were not re-flown. A single Rutherford engine was refurbished and reused.<\/p>\n<p>Stoke Space also has plans for reusability with its Nova rocket, but it aims for it to be closer to SpaceX\u2019s Starship rather than the Falcon 9 in that Stoke is aiming for full reusability. It will be launching from Space Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and is currently building out the pad with aims to have it operational by early 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Some Chinese companies are also working to incorporate what\u2019s referred to as Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing (VTVL). LandSpace performed a 10 km (6.2 m) hop test in 2024 and Space Epoch completed what it called a successful flight recovery test mission, sending its Yuanxingzhe-1 rocket to a hight of about 2.5 km (1.6 m) in altitude before performing a controlled splashdown in the Yellow Sea.<\/p>\n<p>Other companies, like United Launch Alliance are working on different models of reusing rocket parts. ULA is working towards a system that would sever the engine section of its Vulcan rocket and use an inflatable shield to protect it during reentry and allow teams to recover it from the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster completes a landing on the droneship, \u2018Just Read the Instructions,\u2019 during the Starlink 10-56 mission on Aug. 27, 2025. The recovery was the 400th landing of an orbital class rocket. Image: SpaceX A Falcon 9 rocket placed another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit shortly after sunrise on Wednesday and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,993,316,1000],"class_list":["post-9763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-9","tag-just-read-the-instructions","tag-spacex","tag-starlink-10-56"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}