SpaceX achieves 100th launch of 2024 with Starlink mission on Falcon 9 rocket – Spaceflight Now

Update 2:31 AM EDT: SpaceX launched the Starlink 10-10 mission at 2:10 AM EDT (0610 UTC).

SpaceX broke its own record for the number of orbital launches by a single company, which it set at 96 in 2023. The Starlink 10-10 mission put SpaceX on 97 orbital flights with two and a half months remaining in the year.

The Falcon 9 launch also marks SpaceX’s 100th overall launch of 2024, including three suborbital launches of the Starship rocket from South Texas. The launch took place at 2:10 a.m. EDT (0610 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1080 in the SpaceX fleet, was launched for the 11th time. It has previously flown two private astronaut missions to the ISS (Axiom-2 and Axiom-3), two Cargo Dragon missions to the ISS (NG-21 and CRS-30) and the Euclid Space Telescope for the European Space Agency (ESA). ).

Just over eight minutes after liftoff, B1080 touched down on the SpaceX drone, dubbed “A Shortfall of Gravitas.” This marks ASOG’s 81st booster landing and 353rd booster landing to date.

The mission has 23 Starlink V2 Mini satellites on board. This was the first launch of Starlink satellites since an upper stage anomaly occurred during the Crew-9 mission on September 28. The final batch of Starlink satellites was launched during the Starlink 9-8 mission on September 25.

During the Crew-9 mission, after the Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft separated from the upper stage, the Merlin Vacuum Engine fired for an additional 500 milliseconds during the deorbit burn, causing the stage to move beyond the planned landing zone to burn up the Pacific Ocean.

This issue was investigated by SpaceX in an unfortunate investigation overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration and examined by NASA in an independent review. Since the accident, SpaceX has successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket on the Hera asteroid mission for ESA and a Falcon Heavy rocket on the Europe Clipper mission for NASA.