# B1034

> expended Falcon 9 first-stage booster

**Wikidata**: [Q97313025](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q97313025)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/b1034

## Summary
B1034 is the serial number of an expendable Falcon 9 first-stage booster built by SpaceX that flew once on 15 May 2017 carrying the Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite and was intentionally destroyed rather than recovered. It belongs to the Falcon 9 Full Thrust vehicle family and sits between boosters B1033 and B1035 in production sequence.

## Key Facts
- **Serial number**: B1034, manufactured by SpaceX in the United States
- **Vehicle class**: Falcon 9 Full Thrust (third major Falcon 9 version)
- **Only launch**: 15 May 2017, 19:21 UTC, deploying Inmarsat-5 F4 to geostationary transfer orbit
- **Fate**: Expended (deliberately not recovered) on the same day as launch
- **Production sequence**: Follows B1033 and is followed by B1035
- **Instance of**: Falcon 9 booster, Falcon 9 Full Thrust, former entity
- **Commons category**: SpaceX Falcon 9 B1034
- **Wikidata sitelinks**: 2 (Czech Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons)

## FAQs
### Q: Was B1034 recovered after launch?
A: No. SpaceX expended the stage; it was not fitted with landing legs or grid fins and was destroyed during re-entry into the atmosphere.

### Q: Which mission used B1034?
A: The Inmarsat-5 F4 communications-satellite launch from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center on 15 May 2017.

### Q: How many times did B1034 fly?
A: Exactly once. After its single flight it was expended, making it a non-reusable booster.

## Why It Matters
B1034 illustrates the transitional period in SpaceX’s reusability program. By mid-2017 SpaceX had already landed and re-flown several boosters, yet some customers still required the performance gain achieved by discarding the first stage. Inmarsat-5 F4 weighed roughly 6,100 kg and needed to be inserted into a high-energy geostationary transfer orbit; recovering the booster would have required reserving propellant and hardware mass that instead went to payload performance. Choosing to expend B1034 therefore shows how launch-service providers balance engineering constraints against customer requirements. The mission also marked one of the final expendable flights of a Falcon 9 Full Thrust variant; subsequent improvements in Block 5 enabled similar payloads to be launched with booster recovery, cementing reusability as the standard rather than the exception.

## Notable For
- One of the last intentionally expended Falcon 9 cores before Block 5 introduced higher-performance margins
- Carried the heaviest Inmarsat payload launched by Falcon 9 up to that date
- Demonstrated the Full Thrust variant’s capability to lift >6 t to GTO without recovery hardware
- Production sequence link between the destroyed Falcon Heavy core B1033 and the preserved display booster B1035

## Body
### Design and Manufacture
SpaceX built B1034 in Hawthorne, California, as part of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust production line. The stage measured 42.6 m long, 3.66 m in diameter, and was powered by nine Merlin 1D+ engines arranged in an octaweb configuration. Full Thrust up-rated engine performance and densified propellants compared with earlier Falcon 9 v1.1 vehicles.

### Mission Profile
On 15 May 2017 B1034 lifted off from LC-39A carrying Inmarsat-5 F4, a Boeing-built Ka-band communications satellite. After about 2.5 minutes the booster separated, performed a re-entry burn without grid fins or landing legs, and was intentionally destroyed over the Atlantic Ocean. The second stage continued to deploy the satellite into a supersynchronous transfer orbit.

### Legacy
Because the flight was expended, no recovery attempt footage exists, limiting public imagery to pre-launch photos. The stage’s expendable role contrasts with B1035, which launched NASA CRS-11 and CRS-13 and is now displayed in Houston, highlighting how rapidly SpaceX shifted toward reusability.

## Schema Markup
```json
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Thing",
  "name": "B1034",
  "description": "Expended Falcon 9 first-stage booster that flew on 15 May 2017 launching Inmarsat-5 F4.",
  "sameAs": [
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30636826"
  ],
  "additionalType": "Falcon 9 booster"
}

## References

1. Jonathan's Space Report