Launch of Galileo L13 brings Experimental Booster Recovery

At 22:50 UTC this evening SpaceX will launch the Galileo L13 mission from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida. This might well sound like another run of the mill Falcon 9 launch, however this one has a twist - it will feature an experimental booster recovery! 

B1067 will be flying for the 22nd time, after launching a CRS-22, Crew 3, a plethora of other customer missions, and 12 Starlink launches. It will attempt to land on Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. This mission follows a very similar trajectory to the Galileo L12 mission earlier this year, which saw the booster expended to provide the performance needed. However SpaceX was able to gather data from that mission to slightly change the design and operation of the launch, including unspecified mass reductions and trajectory adjustments. They say they plan to recover and reuse the booster. 

Where the “experimental” part of the recovery comes in is the fact that it will come in faster than many of their past landings, resulting in greater heating and higher dynamic pressures on the vehicle. Now SpaceX says this is still acceptable but they are wanting to experiment to see if this will work.

I’m sure we’ll all be watching along excitedly for this launch, which promises excitement as we see B1067 try something new!

Thanks for reading this article by Luke Madgett