SpaceX has been landing the first stage of its workhorse Falcon 9 since 2015, and the sight of the vehicle touching down upright with its engines blazing never gets old.
Most landings take place on a drone ship waiting in the ocean, but SpaceX occasionally lands the launch vehicle near the launch site.
Earlier this week, the Elon Musk-led space company launched and landed a Falcon 9 booster – B1067 – for the 32nd time, underscoring SpaceX’s ability to reuse its rockets.
But after the engines stop and the livestream ends, the booster becomes little more than an oddly shaped piece of cargo bobbing on the waves, with a mundane journey back to base ahead.
A new video from NASASpaceFlight’s Elisar Priel shows some of the more unremarkable and very ordinary voyages of a Falcon 9 first stage launch vehicle, this time the record-breaking B1067.
No, it’s not the most exciting footage, but it does provide a behind-the-scenes look at what happens to the rocket once the fireworks are over.
After a Falcon 9 booster returns to port, it is lifted from the drone ship and taken to a hangar, where SpaceX engineers carefully inspect its structure and engines for wear and serious damage.
After the assessment, teams make any necessary repairs or replace parts before conducting thorough testing for the booster’s next flight.
When the vehicle is ready, SpaceX planners will select a mission for it before integrating a new upper stage for flight. This could include anything from deploying another batch of Starlink satellites to a manned mission to the space station.
The rocket is then transported back to the launch site and ready to repeat the cycle, which begins with another launch and ends with another routine trip home.
