![]() ![]() With the fresh satellites launched Friday, SpaceX has now sent 4,105 Starlink spacecraft into orbit, including test vehicles and prototypes. The upper stage delivered the 52 Starlink satellites to a low-altitude orbit and released them 15 minutes into the mission. The Falcon 9’s first stage, tail number B1071, detached from the upper stage and descended to a drone ship west of Baja California for landing about eight-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, completing the reusable booster’s eighth flight to space. The mission from California, designated Starlink 2-8, was SpaceX’s 77th launch with the primary purpose of placing Starlink internet satellites into orbit. This is the first of two SpaceX launches planned today, with another Falcon 9 counting down to liftoff from Florida tonight. There are 52 more Starlink internet satellites on-board. Liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Central Coast. ![]() EDT 1926:40 GMT), with a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 52 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink internet network. The first launch of the day took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California northwest of Los Angeles at 12:26:40 p.m. The back-to-back missions were SpaceX’s 18th and 19th flights of the year, and 211th and 212th flights overall by a Falcon 9 rocket. With up to 100 missions planned this year and three operational launch pads, SpaceX’s record for turnaround time between Falcon 9 launches could be broken again in the coming months. The launch doubleheader record is a company best for SpaceX. It improved on the seven-hour turnaround between Falcon 9 launches accomplished by SpaceX last October. The back-to-back missions, just 4 hours and 12 minutes apart, set a record for the shortest span between two SpaceX Falcon 9 launches in the company’s history. The agency has not launched a space vehicle designed to send astronauts to the moon since 1972.SpaceX launched two Falcon 9 rockets in a span of a little more than four hours Friday, a record-setting day that began with the launch of 52 Starlink internet satellites from California and ended with the sunset liftoff of two SES television broadcast payloads from Florida. The problem was traced to a faulty Ethernet switch, and this needed fixing as well.Ī successful launch would be a key milestone for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to put the first woman and first person of color on the lunar surface. The bedeviled team then learned that a critical radar site had suffered a loss of signal. They tightened some bolts on a valve that apparently may have been "visibly loose," according to part of an exchange captured on a hot mic, and solved the problem. This time around, mission managers sent "red crew" of three workers out to the launch pad, to the bottom of the dangerous, fully-fueled rocket. ![]() "So far, so good," NASA launch commentator Derrol Nail said on Tuesday, around sunset, as workers carefully filled the rocket's fuel tanks with liquid oxygen and hydrogen.īut before too long, the team faced a leak of hydrogen fuel - the same kind of problem that stopped a previous effort to launch this rocket in September. Jeremy Parsons, deputy program manager for Exploration Ground Systems at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, told reporters on Monday evening that "countdown so far is proceeding very well and we are on schedule." The two-hour launch window starts at 1:04 a.m. NASA's Artemis moon rocket is slated for lift-off early on Wednesday, Nov. ![]()
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