SpaceX Fairing Recovery Attempts (2023)

Recovered fairings from the Starlink 7-6 mission (Credit: John Svinos)

SpaceX has been working for years towards recovering and reusing payload fairings. Fairing is a two-piece protective shell made of aluminum and carbon composite at the tip of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Its purpose is to protect the payload from acoustic and atmospheric effects during launch. A Falcon fairing is almost 14 meters tall. Due to its size and the materials used, fairing production is time-consuming and costly (SpaceX produces the fairings in-house and the total cost for two fairing halves is 5 or 6 million dollars). So it is no wonder that the company would like to recover the fairings in order to use them repeatedly, just as it does with its rocket boosters.

Each fairing half is equipped with a steerable parafoil and small thrusters which allow the fairings to reenter the atmosphere intact and guide them toward a recovery zone. In the past, they attempted to land on modified ships Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief equipped with large nets. But this method had low success rate, so the fairings now land in the ocean and are then recovered by ships.

This list of fairing recovery attempts recognizes three generations of fairings: v1.0, v2.0 and v2.5. These are unofficial designations and there might actually be fewer or more fairing types. Version 1.0 was used until early 2018 with only one fairing half containing parachutes. Version 2.0 was used for most of 2018, was slightly wider and both of its halves could be recovered. Version 2.5 is the most recent type which added metal thermal protection on the tip of the fairing.

» Much more detailed article about fairing recovery «


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Legend: YES means the fairing successfully landed in the net. YES means the fairing missed the net but was then recovered from the ocean intact. YES means the fairing was recovered intact after a PLANNED ocean landing. NO means that the fairing wasn’t recovered intact (regardless of planned landing method). indicates a reused fairing (asterisk means that only one fairing half was reused).

Date (UTC) Mission Target(s) Type Recovered? Reused on
2023-12-29 Starlink 6-36 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-12-29 USSF-52 ocean v2.5 YES / YES ?
2023-12-24 SARah-2/3 ocean v2.5 UNCLEAR ?
2023-12-23 Starlink 6-32 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-12-19 Starlink 6-34 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-12-08 Starlink 7-8 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-12-07 Starlink 6-33 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-12-03 Starlink 6-31 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-12-01 Project 425 F1 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR Starlink 7-11
2023-11-28 Starlink 6-30 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-11-22 Starlink 6-29 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / NO ?
2023-11-20 Starlink 7-7 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-11-18 Starlink 6-28 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-11-12 O3b mPOWER 3 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-11-11 Transporter-9 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-11-08 Starlink 6-27 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-11-04 Starlink 6-26 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-10-30 Starlink 6-25 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-10-29 Starlink 7-6 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-10-22 Starlink 6-24 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-10-21 Starlink 7-5 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-10-18 Starlink 6-23 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-10-14 Starlink 6-22 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-10-13 Psyche ocean v2.5 YES / YES ?
2023-10-09 Starlink 7-4 ocean v2.5 ♺? UNCLEAR ?
2023-10-05 Starlink 6-21 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-09-30 Starlink 6-19 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-09-25 Starlink 7-3 ocean v2.5 ♺? UNCLEAR ?
2023-09-24 Starlink 6-18 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / NO ?
2023-09-20 Starlink 6-17 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-09-16 Starlink 6-16 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-09-12 Starlink 7-2 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-09-09 Starlink 6-14 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-09-04 Starlink 6-12 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-09-02 SDA Tranche 0 L2 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-09-01 Starlink 6-13 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-08-27 Starlink 6-11 ocean v2.5 ♺? YES / YES ?
2023-08-22 Starlink 7-1 ocean v2.5 ♺? UNCLEAR ?
2023-08-17 Starlink 6-10 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-08-11 Starlink 6-9 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-08-08 Starlink 6-20 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-08-07 Starlink 6-8 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-08-03 Intelsat Galaxy 37 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-07-29 Jupiter-3 (EchoStar 24) ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-07-28 Starlink 6-7 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-07-24 Starlink 6-6 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-07-20 Starlink 6-15 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-07-16 Starlink 5-15 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-07-10 Starlink 6-5 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-07-07 Starlink 5-13 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-07-01 Euclid ocean v2.5 YES / YES ?
2023-06-23 Starlink 5-12 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-06-22 Starlink 5-7 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-06-18 Satria ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-06-12 Transporter-8 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-06-12 Starlink 5-11 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-06-04 Starlink 6-4 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-05-31 Starlink 2-10 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-05-27 BADR-8 (Arabsat 7B) ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-05-20 Iridium-9 / OneWeb F19 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-05-19 Starlink 6-3 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-05-14 Starlink 5-9 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-05-10 Starlink 2-9 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-05-04 Starlink 5-6 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-05-01 Viasat-3 Americas ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-04-29 O3b mPOWER 2 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-04-27 Starlink 3-5 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / UNCLEAR ?
2023-04-19 Starlink 6-2 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-04-15 Transporter-7 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-04-07 Intelsat 40e ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-04-02 SDA Tranche 0 L1 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-03-29 Starlink 5-10 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-03-24 Starlink 5-5 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-03-17 SES-18/SES-19 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-03-17 Starlink 2-8 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-03-09 OneWeb F17 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-03-03 Starlink 2-7 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-02-28 Starlink 6-1 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-02-18 Inmarsat-6 F2 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-02-17 Starlink 2-5 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-02-12 Starlink 5-4 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-02-07 Amazonas Nexus ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-02-02 Starlink 5-3 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-01-31 Starlink 2-6 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-01-26 Starlink 5-2 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-01-19 Starlink 2-4 ocean v2.5 ♺ UNCLEAR ?
2023-01-18 GPSIII-SV06 ocean v2.5 YES / YES ?
2023-01-15 USSF-67 ocean v2.5 YES / YES ?
2023-01-10 OneWeb F16 ocean v2.5 ♺ YES / YES ?
2023-01-03 Transporter-6 ocean v2.5 YES / YES ?
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