SpaceX nearly loses its Falcon 9 rocket at sea.
There is still considerable ambiguity regarding what occurred following the landing, but when B1069 was finally brought within visual range, the booster was significantly damaged, riding low on all four legs, inches from falling off the drone ship's deck, and only partially attached to the "Octagrabber" robot tasked with securing it. According to Teslarati photographer Richard Angle's images of the damaged rocket, the most, if not all, of B1069's nine Merlin 1D (M1D) engines sustained possibly irreversible damage to their delicate bell nozzles.
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According to the ragged nature of the damage to those nozzles, it appears as though B1069 collided with the drone ship's Octagrabber robot during or after its recovery attempt, as the creases would be much cleaner if the booster landed hard and slammed its M1D nozzles on the deck. However, a relatively brief fall onto Octagrabber does not account for the apparent damage to one of the booster's landing legs or the fact that it is sitting lower to the deck than usual - both of which could indicate a harsh landing.
Falcon 9 B1069 nearly broke from of the steel I-beam ‘fence’ that surrounds drone ship’s JRTI’s deck. (Richard Angle)
What is evident is that SpaceX had difficulty securing the rocket immediately after its initial landing. According to the CRS-24 livestream, B1069 landed slightly off centre. SpaceX was unable to immediately catch the booster with Octagrabber, which utilises huge clamps and its own weight to secure Falcon first stages. B1069 then visibly slid around the deck of the drone ship JRTI at the whim of the sea. Before SpaceX could secure it, the booster collided with the side of the drone ship, partially flattening a steel safety barrier that runs down the drone ship's port and starboard beams — a barrier designed to prevent wayward boosters from rolling off the deck.
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Above importantly, there is no reason to believe that SpaceX will be unable to fix the damage. Replacing all nine engines on B1069 will significantly delay the booster's return to flight and will almost certainly cost SpaceX at least $5-10 million on its own, but that cost is still significantly less than destroying the booster and creating a new one. Apart from that, it's probable that B1069's demise will bar strict customers such as NASA or the US military from reusing the booster to launch their payloads, which the booster would have been a shoe-in for with only one NASA mission.
While the dramatic return of CRS-24 and B1069 marked SpaceX's final launch and booster recovery of the year, the company recovered several more rockets without incident in the days and weeks preceding. On December 14, Falcon 9 B1061 was photographed being craned onto dry land following its fifth launch – NASA's IXPE X-ray space telescope.
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Not long after, Falcon 9 booster B1067 arrived at Port Canaveral, but spent the majority of the winter holiday aboard the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas (ASOG), where several SpaceX personnel had a well-earned break. The three-times-launched launcher was eventually hoisted onto the dock and torn down over a few days before B1069 arrived in port, preparing for a fourth launch in the near future.
While the apparent damage to B1069 and JRTI's Octagrabber is a nuisance that will require much time and money to repair, SpaceX still has eleven operating Falcon 9 boosters ready to support a potentially record-breaking 2022 launch manifest.
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