SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, perched on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, takes off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, taking two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on May 30.
SpaceX
SpaceX sent a military GPS satellite into space Tuesday afternoon for the US Space Force using a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
This is the company’s third release since its Historic NASA Astronaut Flight to the International Space Station on May 30, and for the first time, he landed and retrieved one of his rockets after raising a military satellite into orbit. The first stage of the Falcon 9 landed on the drones. Just read the instructions eight minutes after launch. SpaceX also reported that it was able to retrieve the two halves of the fairing, or nose cone, for reuse on a future mission.
The mission is the company’s eleventh launch in 2020. Continuing this intense rate of launch would allow Elon Musk’s commercial space startup to set a company record for most launches in a year.
The company launched another military GPS satellite in 2018. At that time, the US Air Force determined that SpaceX would be unable to perform the necessary flight path and would not land the first-stage booster, either, according to SpaceNews.
Since then, SpaceX and the U.S. Army have negotiated changes to their GPS mission requirements and the cost of launch to allow SpaceX to recycle the booster.
The Falcon 9 booster used during today’s launch was brand new and this was his first mission. Two previous launches in June used propellers that had been flown previously. On Tuesday, the booster (designed B1060) successfully landed on the Just Read The Instructions drone, about 10 minutes after launch.
More to come soon
SpaceX had also scheduled its second Starlink Carpool mission for last week, but the launch was postponed, with July 8 as the new planned launch date.
“The team needed additional time for pre-launch payments, but Falcon 9 and the satellites are healthy,” SpaceX tweeted a couple of hours before the scheduled launch time for Friday.
Withdrawing from today’s Starlink mission; The team needed additional time for pre-launch payments, but Falcon 9 and the satellites are in good shape. Will announce new target release date once confirmed in range
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 26, 2020
SpaceX had its busiest year so far in 2018 with 21 launches. He is now on his way to eclipse that mark in 2020, perhaps hitting 38 launches for the year if his plans work. The company expects to continue packing its schedule with more takeoffs, with the goal of 70 missions in 2023, according to a draft submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year.
Many of the launches will be Starlink missions, as SpaceX seeks to put tens of thousands of its small satellites into orbit this decade. The company has also started Carrying out shared travel launches, making room for some commercial loads along with a batch of Starlink birds.
Starlink’s next launch will be Starlink’s second ride, this time with two Earth observation microsatellites for Black Sky, a company that provides high-definition satellite imagery.
SpaceX is trying to expand the size of its growing constellation to almost 600 satellites and closer to the threshold of 800 flying routers than Musk has said he would allow limited broadband service to start..
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