The Starlink 17-39 mission is SpaceX’s 85th Falcon 9 rocket launch of the year. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base occurred at 7:49 a.m….
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg (Launch at the 29:52 mark).
Spaceflight Now; YouTube
Spaceflight Now reports, “Following a last minute scrub Saturday morning, SpaceX launched a batch of Starlink satellites in the predawn hours of Sunday morning. The launch came as the Federal Aviation Administration readies a rollout of commercial launch restrictions for U.S. airspace.” The mission was SpaceX’s 560th Falcon 9 rocket launch to date, with liftoff taking place at pad 39A “at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 9 at 3:10 EST (0810 UTC).”
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SpaceX performs its 560th Falcon 9 rocket launch to date from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. (Launch occurs at the 59:12 mark)
Spaceflight Now; YouTube
Spaceflight Now reports, “SpaceX notched another milestone in spaceflight reusability Wednesday night when it not only launched a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket booster for the 350th time in program history, but also performed its 300th successful booster landing.”
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UPI reports that SpaceX “launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida’s famed Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night.” The rocket “launched at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” Up to four backup launch opportunities “were available to SpaceX to launch the nearly two dozen satellites into low-Earth orbit where they will join Starlink’s constellation of orbitals that provide high-speed, low-latency Internet around the globe.” The launch occurred shortly “after SpaceX scrubbed a Flacon Heavy mission that was to liftoff late Thursday.” No reason for “aborting the mission was immediately made public.” The first-stage booster “used in the early Friday launch flew its 15th mission.” After deploying its payload “into space, the launch vehicle returned to Earth where it landed upon the autonomous A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.” The launch “was SpaceX’s 50th of the year and 249th overall.”
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Starlink Mission, 26 August 2023
(SpaceX; YouTube)
UPI reports that SpaceX “launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida’s famed Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night.” The rocket “launched at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” Up to four backup launch opportunities “were available to SpaceX to launch the nearly two dozen satellites into low-Earth orbit where they will join Starlink’s constellation of orbitals that provide high-speed, low-latency Internet around the globe.” The launch occurred shortly “after SpaceX scrubbed a Flacon Heavy mission that was to liftoff late Thursday.” No reason for “aborting the mission was immediately made public.” The first-stage booster “used in the early Friday launch flew its 15th mission.” After deploying its payload “into space, the launch vehicle returned to Earth where it landed upon the autonomous A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.” The launch “was SpaceX’s 50th of the year and 249th overall.”
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UPI reports that SpaceX “launched its latest round of Starlink communication satellites from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida just before midnight Saturday.” The mission had “been scrubbed Friday, with SpaceX saying a static fire of the rocket’s main engines would need to be performed, giving a hint to a possible rocket hardware issue.” The Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage, which “launched the 54 satellites, safely returned to Earth, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, marking a record-tying 16th safe launch and landing of the rocket’s booster.” The first stage of another Falcon 9 rocket “launched on July 9 also landed safely on Earth for the 16th time, setting a record for the company. Saturday’s launch tied that record.” The return of Saturday’s first stage “marked the 207th time SpaceX has safely returned the first stage.”
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Starlink Mission
On Saturday, July 15 at 11:50 p.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 54 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
Aviation Week reports that SpaceX “launched the same Falcon 9 rocket for a record 16th time on July 9 and then landed the first stage, paving the way for a possible 17th flight.” The booster first “flew in May 2020 to send NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on their way to the International Space Station.”
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Starlink Mission
On Sunday, July 9 at 11:58 p.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
Florida Today reports that SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 on Sunday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Falcon 9 rocket carried 22 Starlink satellites into orbit. The company now has over 4,500 Starlink satellites orbiting Earth. The second of two planned launches was scrubbed due to weather. After the scrub of Sunday’s second launch, NASA and SpaceX teams “re-targeted 11:47 a.m. EDT Monday, June 5, for the next mission carrying cargo to the International Space Station.”
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Starlink Mission
On Sunday, June 4, at 8:20 a.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 22 second-generation Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
UPI reports that SpaceX successfully “launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying nearly two dozen satellites for its Starlink Internet mission into space early Friday.” The rocket’s payload included 22 second-generation mini Starlink satellites and was “launched at 2:31 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” The launch comes “after the mission suffered two previous delays, according to Spaceflight Now, with its first launch scheduled in April and it second for Thursday.”
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Starlink Mission
Friday, May 19 at 12:41 a.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 22 second-generation Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
UPI reports that on Sunday morning, SpaceX “successfully deployed another batch of Starlink satellites into space and successfully landed its first-stage booster.” The Falcon 9 rocket “lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station just after midnight.” The first-stage booster then “returned to Earth and landed on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean about eight minutes after takeoff.” It marked SpaceX’s 191st successful “landing of the first stage, including Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions.”
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Starlink Mission
A SpaceX Falcon 9 launches 56 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit Sunday, May 14 at 1:03 a.m. ET, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)