SpaceX is poised to interrupt its rocket-reuse document but once more.
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch 23 of SpaceX’s Starlink web satellites to orbit from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station tonight (Dec. 22) throughout a four-hour window that opens at 11:00 p.m. EST (0400 GMT on Dec. 23).
It is going to be the nineteenth liftoff for this explicit Falcon 9 first stage, based on a SpaceX mission description, setting a brand new reusability mark for the corporate.
You possibly can watch the motion dwell through SpaceX’s account on X (previously referred to as Twitter). Protection will start about 5 minutes earlier than the launch window opens.
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If all goes based on plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come again to Earth tonight for the nineteenth time. It should land about 8.5 minutes after launch on the drone ship Simply Learn the Directions, which shall be stationed within the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, will proceed hauling the 23 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO). The spacecraft shall be deployed there about 65.5 minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk needs to assist humanity colonize Mars and obtain a wide range of different bold exploration feats. Rocket reusability is a key a part of this imaginative and prescient, serving to to chop the price of spaceflight and enhance its cadence.
So SpaceX’s reuse data do not are likely to final lengthy. The earlier mark — 18 flights for a Falcon 9 booster — was set simply final month.
SpaceX has launched greater than 90 orbital missions to date in 2023. Most of them have been devoted to constructing out its Starlink broadband megaconstellation, which presently consists of almost 5,200 operational satellites.