SpaceX accomplished its fourth Falcon 9 rocket launch since Sunday with a mission carrying the corporate’s newest batch of Starlink web satellites.
Liftoff of the Starlink 6-66 mission pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station occurred at 11:07 a.m. EST (1607 UTC) on Thursday. Area Pressure meteorologists gave the rocket a 90 % probability of excellent climate forward of launch, with liftoff winds being the one concern on the launch website.
The launch got here days after SpaceX’s largely profitable Starship Flight 6 mission on Tuesday, which showcased the primary daytime splashdown of its Ship higher stage.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, with the tail quantity B1069, launched for a twentieth time. It beforehand supported the launches of CRS-24, OneWeb 15 and 15 earlier Starlink flights.
Just a little greater than eight minutes after liftoff, the primary stage booster landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This was the 86th booster touchdown on ASOG and the 372nd booster touchdown so far.
Emphasizing the significance of reuse for the corporate, in a post-launch assertion on X, previously Twitter, SpaceX famous that at the least one half of the payload fairings that flew on Thursday’s mission accomplished its twenty first flight, changing into the launch chief.
Falcon 9’s first stage lands on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship pic.twitter.com/YH1SaTr9VC
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 21, 2024
On Monday, Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vp of launch, famous that there have been 21 extra launches on the corporate’s launch manifest that it wished to finish earlier than the tip of the 12 months.
If SpaceX is ready to notch all of them earlier than the tip of the 12 months, it can shut out 2024 with 136 orbital launches. Two of this 12 months’s launches have been Falcon Heavy rockets. The Falcon 9 has had a single failure this 12 months on the Starlink 9-3 mission which suffered an higher stage concern.
21 launches stay on the manifest in 2024 with 43 days to go
— Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver) November 18, 2024
