SpaceX loses middle landing Falcon Heavy rocket stage due to rough seas

SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon Heavy on Friday morning, successfully landing both the two side boosters and the center core. The middle core landed on a ship, but the rocket stage was lost due to the rough sea.

SpaceX told The Verge that the sea was rough over the weekend, as a result of which the drone ship dubbed ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ in the Atlantic failed to land the middle core. The rocket stage, which has a height of at least 35 meters, has ended up in the sea. “Over the weekend, the weather conditions deteriorated, with waves of 2.5 to 3 meters high, causing the booster to slide and eventually it proved impossible to keep it upright,” said SpaceX.

Normally, these rocket stages of the Falcon 9 rocket received on the drone ships are more or less secured with the so-called octagrabber, a robot platform that fixes the booster to the deck on the landing platform. This should prevent a falling booster. However, this procedure was not possible with the Falcon Heavy’s middle core. In principle, this middle rocket stage is largely the same as the lower rocket stage of the Falcon 9, but the design is slightly different, because the middle core of the Falcon Heavy must be attached to the two side boosters. Due to this different design, the octa-grabber mounting method is not possible with the middle stage of the Falcon Heavy.

In the coming summer, SpaceX will again launch a Falcon Heavy, this time with an all-new middle core that can use the octagrabber. At that launch, the side boosters that landed on land on Friday should be deployed again. SpaceX doesn’t think the lost rocket stage will impact future missions.

In its recent launch, the Saudi Arabian satellite Arabsat 6a has successfully entered orbit. This was the Falcon Heavy’s second launch and its first commercial mission. The first launch of February last year also went well, except for the landing of the middle core. That then went wrong, with the rocket stage missing the ship and crashing into the sea.