SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on its 14th mission on Saturday (October 8), sending two commercial communications satellites into orbit.
The Falcon 9
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket returned to Earth and landed aboard a SpaceX drone, A Shortfall of Gravitas, about 8.5 minutes after launch. The motorized ship was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles off the coast of Florida.
Related: 8 ways SpaceX has transformed spaceflight
This was the 14th launch and landing of this particular booster, According to the description of the mission of SpaceX (Opens in a new tab) . The missile previously helped launch GPS III-3 and Turksat 5A satellites, the Transporter-2 rideshare mission and 10 large batches from SpaceX’s starlink Internet satellites.
Fourteen missions set the record for the first stage of Falcon 9 Set last month only During the launch he raised the BlueWalker 3 communications satellite and 34 Starlinks.
The Galaxy 33 deployed about 33 minutes after boot and the Galaxy 34 followed five minutes later, SpaceX confirmed via Twitter (Opens in a new tab) .
The duo “are the next satellites in Intelsat’s comprehensive Galaxy fleet modernization plan, a new generation of technology that will provide North American Intelsat Media customers with high-performance media distribution capabilities and unparalleled penetration of cable addresses,” Luxembourg-based Intelsat wrote in a statement (Opens in a new tab) . “It is critical to Intelsat’s US C-band clearing strategy.”
Saturday’s launch was SpaceX’s third in four days. On Wednesday, the company launched NASA’s Crew-5 astronaut mission In addition to a set of 52 Starlink satellites .
The Saturday flight was originally supposed to take off on Thursday evening (October 6), but Falcon 9 A spontaneous abortion started soon (Opens in a new tab) before the planned takeoff. The miscarriage was caused by a small helium leak, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk He said on Twitter Thursday (Opens in a new tab) . SpaceX then pushed the launch to Saturday for additional vehicle checks.
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