Photo: Next Horizons Spaceflight
After SpaceX’s newest droneship, “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” arrived off the coast of Port Canaveral, Florida earlier this summer, the company has officially debuted the ship by catching a booster from its recent space station resupply mission.
Following a successful launch of Cargo Dragon to the International Space Station (ISS), Booster B1061 landed safely and routinely on SpaceX’s droneship “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” according to Next Horizons Spaceflight. The droneship is added to SpaceX’s other two operating droneships, “Of Course I Still Love You,” and “Just Read the Instructions.”
The booster can be seen from an aerial view following the landing, which took place off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX uses droneships to retrieve launch reusable hardware, like the recent Booster B1061.
Check out the cool time-lapse below:
While the existence of “A Shortfall of Gravitas” was originally shared in 2018, it wasn’t until July that the droneship began sea trials without a tug boat.
Landing in the dark through clouds pic.twitter.com/kRaAhgcWjf
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 1, 2021
Ahead of the arrival of “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” SpaceX droneship “Of Course I Still Love You” was transferred to the west coast, leaving the former along with “Just Read the Instructions,” in the Atlantic Ocean. A few weeks prior, the new droneship also received a deck extension from SpaceX.
