A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took its twenty fourth flight on Wednesday, a file for the first-stage booster.
Lifting off from the Kennedy House Middle in Florida at 5:13 a.m. ET, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched 24 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit. About eight minutes after launch, the rocket’s first stage carried out a flawless touchdown on a drone ship ready off the coast of Florida, paving the way in which for a twenty fifth flight as soon as it’s been checked over and refurbished.
Earlier flights for the booster, listed by SpaceX as B1067, concerned the CRS-22, CRS-25, Crew 3, Crew 4, TelkomSat-113BT, Turksat-5B, Koreasat-6A, Eutelsat HOTBIRD-F2, Galileo L13, mPOWER-A, and PSN MFS missions, together with 13 Starlink mission deploying web satellites to low-Earth orbit. Earlier than Wednesday’s record-breaking flight, B1067 final launched on November 11, whereas its first flight occurred in June 2021.
Two different first-stage Falcon 9 boosters have taken 23 flights so far, whereas many others have additionally taken a number of flights, so B1067 now leads the pack.
Reusing the rockets on this means permits SpaceX to chop the price of area missions and function launches extra steadily, a setup that makes orbital missions inexpensive for a larger variety of firms and organizations than earlier than.
SpaceX first achieved an upright touchdown of a 41.2-meter-tall Falcon 9 first-stage booster in 2015, and following just a few mishaps throughout subsequent touchdown makes an attempt, it quickly managed to excellent the process.
SpaceX engineers at the moment are eyeing a a lot greater problem — bringing residence the significantly bigger Tremendous Heavy booster, which types the primary stage of the Starship rocket. At 71 meters tall, it’s a lot more durable to land on the bottom, so the corporate added large mechanical “chopstick” arms to the launch tower that safe the booster because it returns to base, simply earlier than the car touches the bottom.
SpaceX achieved the feat in spectacular style on its first try in the course of the rocket’s fifth take a look at flight in October, nevertheless it was unable to repeat the maneuver on its sixth take a look at final month. Nonetheless, with extra follow, SpaceX is anticipated to excellent the touchdown of the Tremendous Heavy because it prepares the rocket for launches towards the moon, Mars, and past.
