SpaceX Block 5 Debut: up to 100 flights

Space.com reports SpaceX  Block 5 will be even more reusable:

SpaceX has landed and re-flown numerous Falcon 9 first stages over the past few years, but none of these individual boosters has launched more than twice. Block 5 first stages, however, are designed to fly 10 times with just inspections between landing and liftoff, and 100 times with some refurbishment involved, SpaceX representatives have said.

That’s a big deal. While I’ll try and keep the SpaceX fandom tamped to a reasonable level, the big successes seem to be coming disproportionately from SpaceX.

Of additional note:

“Block 5 basically summarizes all that we learned on reusability,” Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of build and flight reliability, said last month during a news conference before the launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which lifted off atop a Falcon 9 Block 4. “It’s a reliability upgrade that combines reliability and reusability.”

When asked to provide an example of one of the Block 5’s improvements, Koenigsmann cited materials in the first stage’s heat shield, near the engine base. “But there’s a lot of details here that are very technical,” he added.

The Block 5 has also been designed to meet NASA’s crew-carrying requirements. Like Boeing, SpaceX holds a contract to ferry agency astronauts to and from the International Space Station; such flights could begin in the next year or so.

 No doubt there a lot of little things that might allow for such an improvement. I’d like to see the hints that the prior blocks provided.