SpaceX Falcon 9 returns to flight with night launch; SpaceX eyes next liftoff early Sunday
Ending a rare 16-day stand-down between launches, SpaceX officials announced their Falcon 9 rocket fleet was on the verge of returning to business early Saturday morning at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
"All systems are looking good, weather is 85% favorable, and propellant load is about to begin for tonight’s launch of 23 @Starlink satellites from Florida," a SpaceX tweet declared at 1:09 a.m. EDT Saturday.
Thirty-six minutes later, the Falcon 9 launch drought ended when the rocket illuminated the nighttime darkness and lifted off pad 39A on the Starlink 10-9 mission. The ascending upper stage delivered another 23 Starlink internet-beaming satellites into low-Earth orbit.
Cape Canaveral: Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule in Florida
Next on the calendar — though SpaceX has yet to make a public announcement — another Starlink launch window opens early Sunday morning, a Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory shows. Hours are 12:13-4:43 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The FAA grounded the Falcon 9 after a July 11 liquid oxygen leak developed within insulation around an upper-stage engine during a Starlink mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. That rocket deployed 20 Starlink satellites into the wrong orbit — and they burned up falling through the Earth's atmosphere.
After SpaceX engineering teams performed a comprehensive review, FAA officials gave the green light Thursday for Falcon 9 launches to resume. The agency determined "no public safety issues were involved in the anomaly," and the investigation remains ongoing.
"We are tracking to do more Falcon flights this year than Shuttle did in 30 years, the vast majority of which are uncrewed," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said in a July 12 tweet, the morning after the mishap.
"A major advantage of this super high flight rate is that we can identify and resolve problems that may only occur once every 1000 flights. This is impossible on a low flight rate vehicle," Musk said.
The Falcon 9 first-stage booster from Saturday's KSC mission notched its 17th flight, SpaceX reported. The well-traveled booster previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19, and a dozen Starlink missions.
Following stage separation, the booster landed atop the SpaceX drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean a bit more than eight minutes after liftoff.
Tuesday morning, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the secretive USSF-51 mission for the Space Force’s Space Systems Command at 6:45 a.m. from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
FLORIDA TODAY's Space Team will provide live coverage starting about 90 minutes before the Atlas V liftoff at floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at [email protected]. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX Falcon 9 returns to flight Saturday, targets next launch Sunday
