SpaceX launched one other batch of Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. A Falcon 9 rocket carried 22 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit after launching from Cape Canaveral Area Drive Station.
Liftoff from Area Launch Complicated 40 (SLC-40) occurred at 9:20 a.m. EDT (1320 UTC), which was the top of a four-hour launch window. The Starlink 10-5 mission was the 57th launch of the web enabling satellites thus far in 2024.
Heading into the launch alternative, the forty fifth Climate Squadron forecast an 80 % probability of favorable climate at liftoff. The first issues are cumulus and thick clouds.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, B1085 within the SpaceX fleet, made its debut on this mission. Just a little greater than eight minutes after liftoff, it touched down on the droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’
This was the eightieth touchdown on ASOG and the 341st booster touchdown thus far. The Starlink 10-5 mission additionally marked the 59th launch from Florida this 12 months and the 153rd world, orbital launch.
The booster, which is slated to launch the Crew 9 mission for NASA in September, was put by way of a static hearth take a look at Monday evening. Again in late July, Steve Stich, NASA’s supervisor of the Industrial Crew Program, stated the booster encountered moisture intrusion because it was delivered by street from Texas to Florida.
“There was some moisture that went into the gasoline within the [liquid oxygen] tank of that booster when it was transported from McGregor to the Cape. The desiccant system didn’t carry out the best way it was imagined to,” Stich stated. “That desiccant system is meant to maintain that air dry and so, it didn’t carry out the best way it was imagined to. So we needed to dry these tanks out after which change a couple of elements on the automobile.”
Following the Starlink 10-5 mission, B1085 might be readied for the Crew-9 launch, concentrating on launch no sooner than Sept. 24, 2024, from pad 40.
SpaceX test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral this night forward of a Starlink supply mission scheduled for no sooner than tomorrow morning. The booster, which suffered moisture intrusion throughout transport to Florida, can also be slated to launch the Crew 9 mission in… pic.twitter.com/N8pi6a8Rz4
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) August 19, 2024
