After the scrub Sunday night, SpaceX’s launch director made a welcome announcement during a subsequent second attempt Monday night at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
“Go for launch,” he said, with 45 seconds left on the countdown clock.
A Falcon 9 rocket rose skyward from Launch Complex 40 shortly after nightfall at 7:20 EST, carrying a payload of 23 Starlink Internet broadcast satellites into low Earth orbit.
SpaceX’s Starlink 6-25 mission marks the record-breaking 59th orbital launch this year from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center.
A Falcon 9 first stage rocket has landed on SpaceX’s “Just Read the Instructions” drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its eighth mission.
SpaceX began lifting its second generation Starlink V2 Mini internet satellites into low Earth orbit earlier this year from Cape Canaveral. Earlier this month, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said there was a “good chance” that the company’s larger, Texas-based Starship Super Heavy rocket would begin deploying Starlink V3 satellites into orbit within about a year.
“With the Falcon 9, we’ve come a long way in terms of reusability. The booster…it’s now quite unusual for the booster not to come back and land. “And it goes down.”
Case in point: On September 20, a Falcon 9 first stage rocket made its record-breaking 17th flight during a Starlink flight from Launch Complex 40, landing on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean.
“But the Falcon 9’s design doesn’t allow for the reuse of the upper stage. “Although the Falcon 9 is fairly fast — especially if you’ve landed at the return-to-launch site — it still takes a few “At least a few days to renew before you can fly it again.”
“In the case of spacecraft, even more profound than size is the fact that they are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable,” Musk said.
When will SpaceX’s next Starlink launch from Florida’s Space Coast?
Although SpaceX has not yet announced the next Starlink mission from the Cape, an updated National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency navigational advisory issued Monday evening indicates that the rocket’s launch window will open from 6:23 to 10:54 p.m. EDT Friday.
For the latest schedule updates, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule.
Rick Neil He is Florida Today’s space correspondent (for more of his stories, click here.) Call Neale at 321-242-3638 or [email protected]. Twitter/X: @Rick Neal1
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