The Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on SpaceX's first crew mission in 2020 launched and landed for the 19th and final time just before Christmas, then tipped over on its recovery ship during the trip back to Cape Canaveral, Florida.

This particular booster, known by the tail number B1058, was special among SpaceX's fleet of reusable rockets. It was the fleet leader, having tallied 19 missions over the course of more than three-and-a-half years. More importantly, it was the rocket that thundered into space on May 30, 2020, on a flight that made history on several counts.

It was the first time a commercial rocket and spacecraft launched people into orbit, and ended a nine-year gap in America's ability to send astronauts into orbit from US soil, following the retirement of the space shuttle. This mission, known as Demo-2 and launched by SpaceX under contract with NASA, ended US reliance on Russian rockets to send crews to the International Space Station. //

Hurley told Ars he would like to see the booster's remains displayed in a museum alongside the Crew Dragon spacecraft (named Endeavour) he and Behnken flew in 2020. "In a perfect world, I’d love to see Endeavour and at least now part of that booster in the Smithsonian or in a museum somewhere," he said. //

Early on December 25, the booster tipped over on the drone ship due to high winds and waves, SpaceX said. This rocket, which was built nearly five years ago, didn't have SpaceX's newest design of landing legs, which can self-level to prevent toppling at sea. //

A day later, the drone ship sailed into Port Canaveral, just south of SpaceX's launch pads, with the rocket's wreckage on the deck. The upper two-thirds of the booster, comprising its liquid oxygen tank, was missing, presumably left to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The remaining parts of the rocket were badly mangled, with bent landing legs and buckled engine nozzles.

Depending on how you count them, this booster launched nearly 870 satellites, mostly Starlinks, plus Hurley and Behnken on the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission. It lofted more than 260 metric tons of payload into orbit. Its 19 flights match the number of missions SpaceX's chief US competitor, United Launch Alliance, has launched since May 30, 2020. //

"We are planning to salvage the engines and do life-leader inspections on the remaining hardware," he wrote on X. "There is still quite a bit of value in this booster. We will not let it go to waste."