Photo and video footage of the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday showed the launcher in space from Cape Canaveral with another batch of nearly 60 Starlink satellites, followed by the successful recovery of the first stage rocket booster and returned offshore.
The 229-foot (70-meter) rocket launches from Tuesday 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:31 a.m. EDT (1431 GMT) Tuesday with 58 SpaceX-built Starlink broadband satellites and three SkySat Earth imaging satellites for Planet , a remote sensing company in San Francisco.
The mission marked the 99th attempt at orbital launch in the history of SpaceX, and SpaceX’s 14th launch of 2020.
Nine Merlin main engines propelled the Falcon 9 rocket into the air with 1.7 million pounds of fuel, consuming petroleum and liquid oxygen fuels two-and-a-half minutes before releasing it to return to Earth for a pinpointing on the SpaceX drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean nearly 630 kilometers northeast of Cape Canaveral.
Falcon 9 is land! The first stage has arrived on the deck of SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
This marks the 58th successful recovery of a Falcon rocket booster since 2015, and the sixth landing of this particular booster.https: //t.co/QK0rrQQrAW pic.twitter.com/cEYBEYrAoF
– Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) August 18, 2020
The rocket’s two-part loadload was jettisoned a moment later, after ignition of the upper stage of the Falcon 9. The two clamshell-like fairing halves returned to Earth under parachutes, and took a SpaceX fairing repair ship one of the halves with a giant net.
A second fairing recovery boat pulled the other fairing shell out of the sea.
The first stage booster and leanload fairing flying on Tuesday’s mission were reused from previous launches. The booster made its sixth voyage to space and returned Tuesday.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared a video on Twitter showing the payroll being caught by one of SpaceX’s recovery boats in the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday. Musk has previously said that the fairing for a Falcon 9 rocket will cost about $ 6 million, and reusing the mantle – such as recycling first-stage boosters – will allow SpaceX to cut launch costs.
Aloha, welcome back from space 💫 pic.twitter.com/xWPN09Wtaw
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2020
Additional photos from Tuesday’s launch are posted below. Read our previous story for a full report on the mission.
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