History-making SpaceX Falcon 9 booster mostly destroyed in post-flight topple

The remains of SpaceX’s first Falcon booster to fly astronauts into orbit are seen atop the droneship “Just Read the Instructions” after a mishap following the stage’s record 19th launch.
(Image credit: Sean Cannon via collectSPACE.com)

The first U.S. commercial rocket to launch astronauts into orbit has met its end after being destroyed during its latest post-flight recovery.

Referred to by SpaceX by its serial number, B1058, the Falcon 9 first stage was being transported back to shore after its record-setting 19th flight when “the booster tipped over “due to high winds and waves,” the company reported on X, the social network previously known as Twitter, on Sunday (Dec. 25).

Two days earlier, the stage had helped launch 23 of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites before successfully touching down on the company’s droneship “Just Read the Instructions,” which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida.

Photos shared online of the returning ship revealed that only the lower segment of B1058 remained, with three of its four landing legs still deployed and all nine of its Merlin engines still intact.

“We are planning to salvage the engines and do life leader inspections on the remaining hardware. There is still quite a bit of value in this booster. We will not let it go to waste,” wrote Jon Edwards, SpaceX’s vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, on X on Tuesday (Dec. 26).

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Seen after landing from its first flight in 2020, B1058 was the only Falcon 9 first stage to be adorned with the NASA “worm.” (Image credit: SpaceX)

Lost with the upper segment of B1058 was a unique, tell-tale marking that it had been used to launch the first astronauts for NASA. The booster was the only stage in SpaceX’s fleet to be adorned with the space agency’s “worm” logotype.

On May 30, 2020, B1058 lifted off for the first time on SpaceX’s Demo-2 (DM-2) mission carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard the company’s Crew Dragon capsule “Endeavour.” The two-month long mission to the International Space Station was the first to launch American astronauts from the United States since the end of NASA’s space shuttle program in 2011.

Since that flight, B1058 was used in the launch of SpaceX’s 21st cargo delivery to the space station (CRS-21), a dedicated satellite launch for South Korea (ANASIS-II), two shared ride satellite launches (Transporter-1 and Transporter-3) and 14 Starlink missions. The stage, like the other “Block 5” boosters in SpaceX’s fleet, had been certified for 20 launches.

“This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit two astronauts and more than 860 satellites, totaling 260+ metric tons, in about 3.5 years,” SpaceX posted on X.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first stage B1058 is seen launching (at left) and landing on Dec. 23, 2023, completing its 19th re-flight. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Other Falcon 9 first stages might have survived the rough sea conditions given improvements made to their landing legs.

“We came up with self leveling legs that immediately equalize leg loads on landing after experiencing a severe tippy booster two years ago on Christmas,” wrote Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, on X. “The fleet is mostly outfitted, but 1058, given its age, was not. It met its fate when it hit intense wind and waves resulting in failure of a partially secured OG [“octograbber” hold-down clamp] less than 100 miles [160 kilometers] from home.”

“One thing is for sure we will make lemonade out of lemons and learn as much as possible from historic 1058 on our path to aircraft like operations,” he wrote.

With the loss of 1058, SpaceX is believed to have 16 flight-proven, active Falcon 9 first stages still remaining and three pending their first use.

SpaceX plans to salvage the nine Merlin engines from what remains of its first Falcon 9 booster to fly 19 times, including the company’s first flight with astronauts aboard. Seen here, the wreckage atop the droneship “Just Read the Instructions” on Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023. (Image credit: Sean Cannon via collectSPACE.com)

Fans of the company reacted to the news of 1058’s destruction with regrets that it had not made it into the Smithsonian or another museum to be preserved.

To date, SpaceX has retired four of its earlier-flown Falcon 9 stages for public display. B1019, the first to return to its launch site for a successful landing, today stands outside the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. B1035, which launched two Dragon cargo missions to the International Space Station, is now exhibited on its side at Space Center Houston in Texas.

B1023, which helped launch Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster into space as a side booster on the first Falcon Heavy rocket launch, is now a part of “Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex” attraction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. And B1021, the first booster to be re-flown and the first to land on a droneship, was just recently installed outside Dish Network’s headquarters in Littleton, Colorado.

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Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, an online publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of “Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018. He previously developed online content for the National Space Society and Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, helped establish the space tourism company Space Adventures and currently serves on the History Committee of the American Astronautical Society, the advisory committee for The Mars Generation and leadership board of For All Moonkind. In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History.

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