SpaceX Launch Marks a Tie of 2022’s Record Number of Launches Written 18 October 2023
SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, at 8:36 p.m. EDT, 17 October 2023. | Credit: SpaceflightNow; YouTube; framegrab
Orlando (FL) Sentinel reports that a SpaceX launch “from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday night marked the Space Coast’s 57th launch of the year equaling the record total seen in 2022.” A Falcon 9 with 22 SpaceX Starlink internet satellites “lifted off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:36 p.m.” This was the first-stage booster’s 16th flight “with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.” For SpaceX it “was its 53rd mission from either Canaveral or Kennedy Space Center this year while United Launch Alliance has flown three times and Relativity Space has flown once.” SpaceX is the “lone launch provider this year from KSC having flown 11 times while ULA, SpaceX and Relativity combined for 46 launches from Canaveral.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)
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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, 17 October 2023
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)