The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reported another Space Coast night launch “Friday marked the 60th liftoff from the Space Coast for the year, this time with a booster flying for a record 18th time.” A Falcon 9 carrying “another 23 of Elon Musk’s company’s Starlink satellites took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:37 p.m.”
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SpaceX Starlink 119 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 4 November 2023
(SciNews; YouTube)
Spaceflight Now reported that the first of two Falcon 9 missions SpaceX “is planning for Sunday carried into orbit the largest batch of second-generation Starlink satellites to be launched from the West Coast.” The Falcon 9 “lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT / 0900 UTC) with 22 satellites aboard.” The California launch “will be followed on Sunday by another Starlink delivery mission carrying 23 satellites, which will launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 UTC).” The Starlink 7-6 mission “was the first time a Falcon 9 has carried 22 of the so-called V2 Mini satellites from the West Coast.” Previously, missions from there “had been limited to 15 or 21 Starlinks, depending on the orbit.” On the East Coast, a Falcon 9 “launched 23 V2 Minis a week ago on Oct. 21, one more than the previous maximum load for a mission from the Cape.”
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Virgin Galactic-05
(NASASpaceflight; YouTube)
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.”
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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, 17 October 2023
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)
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.”
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SpaceX Starlink 113 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 13 October 2023
(SciNews; YouTube)
SPACE reports that early Monday morning, SpaceX launched 21 more of its Starlink broadband satellites “atop a Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.” Liftoff occurred at 3:23 a.m. ET, which was “streamed live via SpaceX’s account on X (formerly known as Twitter).” Eight and half minutes after launch, the Falcon 9’s first stage made a successful “vertical landing at sea on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.” Just over an hour after launch, the Falcon 9’s upper stage “deployed the 21 Starlink spacecraft into low Earth orbit.”
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SpaceX Starlink 112 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 9 October 2023
(SciNews; YouTube)
FlightGlobal reports that Collins Aerospace “has now opened ‘The Grid,’ a long-planned Illinois facility that houses its development of electric and hybrid-electric propulsion technologies for future aircraft.” The aerospace supplier “had previously intended to open the site in the city of Rockford in 2020.” But Collins “slowed some of its electric propulsion work during the Covid-19 pandemic.” The announced opening happened on Wednesday, with the site described as a “$50 million advanced electric power systems lab” focused on hybrid- and more-electric systems. Encompassing 2,323sq m (25,000sq ft) of space, the site “will initially support testing of equipment at power levels reaching 8MW.” Collins already “supplies massive generators to aircraft including Boeing’s 787 and has in recent years amped up its development of new electric aircraft systems.” It recently “developed a 1MW electric motor as part of a broader RTX project to modify a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-100 regional aircraft with a hybrid-electric propulsion system.” Pratt & Whitney Canada “is assisting with that project, which involves replacing one of the Dash 8’s P&WC PW120A turboprops with a hybrid-electric powertrain.” The companies “delayed the project during the Covid-19 pandemic and have recently said they aim for the Dash 8 to get airborne with the hybrid system for the first time in 2024.” Separately, Collins and Pratt & Whitney “are jointly developing a broader line hybrid-electric systems for the emerging urban air mobility sector.”
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Collins Aerospace opens advanced electric power systems lab, The Grid
(Collins Aerospace; YouTube)
Spaceflight Now reported that the first of two Falcon 9 missions SpaceX “is planning for Sunday carried into orbit the largest batch of second-generation Starlink satellites to be launched from the West Coast.” The Falcon 9 “lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 2 a.m. PDT (5 a.m. EDT / 0900 UTC) with 22 satellites aboard.” The California launch “will be followed on Sunday by another Starlink delivery mission carrying 23 satellites, which will launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 UTC).” The Starlink 7-6 mission “was the first time a Falcon 9 has carried 22 of the so-called V2 Mini satellites from the West Coast.” Previously, missions from there “had been limited to 15 or 21 Starlinks, depending on the orbit.” On the East Coast, a Falcon 9 “launched 23 V2 Minis a week ago on Oct. 21, one more than the previous maximum load for a mission from the Cape.”
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SpaceX launches 22 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg, Oct. 29, 2023 at 5 a.m. EDT
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)
SPACE reports that SpaceX “launched 22 more of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit early this morning (Oct. 5), on the company’s 70th orbital mission of the year.” The Starlink spacecraft “lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 1:36 a.m. EDT (0536 GMT).” The rocket had originally “been targeted to launch on Wednesday at 10:45 p.m. EDT (0245 GMT on Oct. 5), but was delayed several hours by poor weather conditions.” As to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage “returned to Earth for a vertical landing at sea on the SpaceX drone ship Just Read the Instructions about 8.5 minutes after launch.” It was the eighth “liftoff and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description.” This morning’s flight “was the 70th orbital mission for SpaceX in 2023. The majority of those launches have been dedicated to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of more than 4,800 operational satellites.”
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SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with Starlink internet satellites
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)
Orlando Sentinel reported that a SpaceX Falcon 9 “took off from the 39th time from Cape Canaveral this year, marking the 49th SpaceX flight from the Space Coast and 69th orbital mission among all of its launch sites.” The rocket “lifted off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10 p.m. after poor weather conditions delayed earlier attempts.” The first-stage booster “made its 10th flight once again making a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean.” SpaceX has “flown all but three of the Space Coast’s 52 missions this year, with Relativity Space adding one and United Launch Alliance managing two more.”
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SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Starlink 6-19 Mission
(NASA Spaceflight; YouTube)
The Orlando Sentinel reports that United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Sunday morning, “on a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office and Space Force called SILENTBARKER/NROL-107.” Last week, NRO Director Chris Scolese said the classified mission’s primary goal is to place watchdog satellites in geostationary Earth orbit “so that we can understand the intentions of other countries to see what they’re doing in the GEO belts and see if there’s any indications of threats or if it’s just normal operations.”
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Atlas V SILENTBARKER/NROL-107 Mission, September 10, 2023
(ULA; YouTube)