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).
