A hop and a skip away from SpaceX’s first Falcon 9 Block 5 recovery, the company’s famous fairing recovery vessel Mr Steven was caught by Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin performing some unusual maneuvers at sea, hauling what can only have been the intact fairing half recovered after SpaceX’s March 30 launch of Iridium NEXT-5.

Why exactly the fairing half was aboard Mr Steven for high-speed trials and eventual delivery to Berth 240 – SpaceX’s future Mars rocket factory – is not entirely clear. The most obvious explanation is that these new operations are in some way related to Falcon 9 payload fairing drop tests hinted at recently by CEO Elon Musk, tests that would allow the company to hone the accuracy of the autonomous parafoils currently used to recover them. In light of Mr Steven’s newly upgraded net, the goal is to gently catch each fairing before they touch down on the ocean’s surface – per SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann, even partial immersion in seawater precludes any future attempts at reuse.

While we originally speculated that water intrusion into the fairing halves’ aluminum honeycomb composite structures – a common failure mode in the history of the material’s use in aerospace – would pose a problem for fairing reuse sans net capture, the actual reason Koenigsmann gave was the fact that the environment inside Falcon fairings must be kept extraordinarily clean to avoid damaging the highly sensitive satellite and spacecraft payloads housed inside. In retrospect, it makes a whole lot of sense that cleaning a fairing thoroughly enough after exposure to seawater/sea spray and its multitudes of organic material, minerals, and simple saltwater could pose an extremely expensive (if not outright intractable) problem for routine reusability. Hence Mr Steven and his wonderfully analog recovery hardware (i.e. a giant net).

Fairing aboard, Mr Steven performed rapid turns and high-speed sprints with the fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin) Mr Steven and his fancy net 2.0, caught on May 7. Bright yellow…for style. (Pauline Acalin) On May 16, he arrived at Berth 240 with fairing half in tow. (Pauline Acalin) Note the distinctive yellow netting draped over the fairing stand aboard Mr Steven. It’s unclear if this is actually the new yellow net spotted last week, or if it’s actually webbing dedicated to securing the fairing cradle. (Pauline Acalin) It’s unclear why the Iridium fairing has been brought once again to Berth 240, aside perhaps from temporary storage. (Pauline Acalin)

After approximately six weeks of rest after its return to Port of San Pedro aboard Mr Steven, the fairing half found itself speeding around the mouth of Port of San Pedro aboard the net boat Mr Steven on May 16, after which it was carefully offloaded at SpaceX’s recently-leased Berth 240 facilities, set to one day become the company’s first Mars rocket and spaceship factory (currently housed in a giant tent a few miles away).

A careful scan of the day’s aviation activities showed no tracked helicopter flights that could have been involved in fairing drop tests, and it’s equally implausible that SpaceX would choose (or be permitted) to attempt to catch a 1000 kg autonomous parafoil a handful of miles from densely populated Los Angeles. Mr Steven’s distinctive yellow net – a brand new upgrade – was also visibly strewn about the vessel’s deck, over top of a basic wooden fairing stand, atop of which sat the sooty Iridium fairing half. Given the lengthy journey, it has made to be aboard Mr Steven, May 16’s unusual day of testing is presumably just the beginning of a number of outings, perhaps culminating in fairing drop and catch tests with a helicopter.

Regardless of why it’s there, the contrast of the dilapidated urban landscape and cutting-edge flight-proven rocket hardware is absolutely breathtaking.(Pauline Acalin) Jump maybe 6 months ahead, and one can already begin to imagine that the first BFS test article may end up being craned aboard a barge before the exact same backdrop. (Pauline Acalin)

Regardless, the whole event was an incredible spectacle, caught in awesome detail by Pauline Acalin. One can only begin to imagine what other sights might one day – perhaps fairly soon – grace the dramatic dockside space SpaceX now owns at Berth 240.

It’s difficult to imagine how Mr Steven’s already vast net could plausibly be expanded by a factor of two in each dimension. I certainly can’t wait to see how SpaceX engineers and technicians tackle the task. (Pauline Acalin) Fairing aboard, Mr Steven performed rapid turns and high-speed sprints with the fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin) Mr Steven and the Iridium fairing half berthed at SpaceX’s Berth 240. (Pauline Acalin) Mr Steven returns to port with the Iridium fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin) Mr Steven out and about with a recovered but unreusable fairing half in May 2018, presumably for some sort of practice. (Pauline Acalin) Mr Steven returns to port with the Iridium fairing half aboard. (Pauline Acalin)

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