Tag: Booster Landing

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Payload for AST SpaceMobile, Lands Booster

SPACE reports, “AST SpaceMobile’s first five commercial satellites have reached orbit. The huge spacecraft, called BlueBirds, lifted off today (Sept. 12) at 4:52 a.m. EDT (0852 GMT) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. … Each BlueBird sports a communications antenna that covers 693 square feet (64 square meters) when unfolded — the largest such array ever deployed by a commercial spacecraft.”
Full Story (SPACE)

 

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SpaceX launches Polaris Dawn crew on first private spacewalk mission (Launch at 00:33 second mark)
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)

SpaceX Launch Marks a Tie of 2022’s Record Number of Launches

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)

SpaceX Launches Two Missions in One Day

Orlando (FL) Sentinel reported that after abiding by NASA’s request “to give its Psyche mission on a Falcon Heavy launch its full attention this week, SpaceX lined up and knocked out a Falcon 9 launch just hours later on Friday.” The day “began with Falcon Heavy making its eighth ever flight lifting off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A cutting through haze and clouds at 10:19 a.m. to successfully bring to space NASA’s $700 million probe that had a six-year flight ahead of it for a rendezvous with a metal-rich asteroid also named Psyche.” Sandwiched in between Falcon Heavy’s launch pad “and its booster landing zones was the Falcon 9 rocket on Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 that had been holding off launch with its Starlink satellite payload since weather forced it to stand down last Sunday.” But with Psyche safely in space, SpaceX “was ready to go and weather stayed green for it to launch that Falcon 9 eight hours and 42 minutes later carrying another 22 Starlink internet satellites into space.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)

 

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SpaceX Starlink 113 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 13 October 2023
(SciNews; YouTube)

SpaceX Successfully Launches Satellites, Misses Booster Landing

CNET News reports that for the first time in a year, “SpaceX appears to have missed the landing of its Falcon 9 first stage booster.” CNET adds that “it seems very likely” that the Falcon 9 used in the launch of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites on Monday “crashed in the ocean.” Meanwhile, the next set of Starlink satellites is scheduled “to blast off from adjacent Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday at 9:55 p.m. PT (12:55 a.m. Wednesday ET).”
Full Story (CNET News)

SpaceX Conducts Starlink Mission Launch and Successful Booster Landing

Spaceflight Now reports SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday at 1:51 p.m. EDT carrying 53 Starlink satellites into orbit thus “growing the company’s commercial internet network [as] ground teams seek to increase the already-blistering pace of Falcon 9 rocket missions.” Launch, initially scheduled to take place at 11:14 a.m.,
was delayed “due to high winds at the Florida spaceport.” The mission, named Starlink 4-14, marked “SpaceX’s 15th Falcon 9 launch of the year, and the 149th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket since the workhorse launcher debuted on June 4, 2010.”  After the launch, the rocket made a successful landing on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)
More Info (WFTV9)

 
 
 

 

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FAA Temporarily Suspends Falcon 9 Launches to Investigate Booster Landing Mishap

Space News reports, “Falcon 9 launches are temporarily on hold as the Federal Aviation Administration looks into any public safety implications of the failed landing of a booster early Aug. 28. In an Aug. 28 statement, the FAA stated it was aware of the incident earlier that day when a Falcon 9 booster landed on a droneship on an otherwise successful launch of 21 Starlink satellites. Upon landing, flames erupted from the booster’s base and the vehicle tipped over seconds later.”
Full Story (Space News)

 

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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 22 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)