Pressure Vessel From Falcon 9 Recovered in Washington State
That Falcon 9 second stage that blazed across the sky over Washington and Oregon as it reentered Earth’s atmosphere on March 25 left something behind. The Grant County Sheriff tweeted:
SpaceX recovered a Composite-Overwrapped Pressure Vessel from last week’s Falcon 9 re-entry. It was found on private property in southwest Grant County this week. Media and treasure hunters: we are not disclosing specifics. The property owner simply wants to be left alone.
The 5-foot COPV is part of the second stage propulsion system. Falcon 9’s second stage is usually deorbited after releasing its payload, but the maneuver reportedly failed following the March 4 launch of 60 Starlink broadband satellites.
No injuries nor any additional debris have been reported in the Washington State county or elsewhere in the Northwest.
7 responses to “Pressure Vessel From Falcon 9 Recovered in Washington State”
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might have kept it and told no one
Wonder if SpaceX made a deal to pay a finder’s fee.
Probably would have done the same 🙂
That overwrapped pressure vessel has been overwrapped.
Yep, made sure it would never fail again.
Much stronger than the one that failed on the pad. NASA did say they had put another layer of carbon fiber on the tanks. So maybe that is why it landed with only a 4″ gash in the ground(newser.com).
An article at NSF says that SN-11 blew up because there was a small methane leak according to Musk.
The one that failed on AMOS was strong too, the problem is it combusted and the right loading conditions.