SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on its 14th mission on Saturday (October 8), sending two commercial communications satellites into orbit.
The Falcon 9which is topped by Intelsat’s Galaxy 33 and Galaxy 34 satellites, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT).
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket returned to Earth and landed aboard a SpaceX drone, A Shortfall of Gravitas, about 8.5 minutes after launch. The motorized ship was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles off the coast of Florida.
Related: 8 ways SpaceX has transformed spaceflight
This was the 14th launch and landing of this particular booster, According to the description of the mission of SpaceX (Opens in a new tab). The missile previously helped launch GPS III-3 and Turksat 5A satellites, the Transporter-2 rideshare mission and 10 large batches from SpaceX’s starlink Internet satellites.
Fourteen missions set the record for the first stage of Falcon 9 Set last month only During the launch he raised the BlueWalker 3 communications satellite and 34 Starlinks.
The Galaxy 33 deployed about 33 minutes after boot and the Galaxy 34 followed five minutes later, SpaceX confirmed via Twitter (Opens in a new tab).
The duo “are the next satellites in Intelsat’s comprehensive Galaxy fleet modernization plan, a new generation of technology that will provide North American Intelsat Media customers with high-performance media distribution capabilities and unparalleled penetration of cable addresses,” Luxembourg-based Intelsat wrote in a statement (Opens in a new tab). “It is critical to Intelsat’s US C-band clearing strategy.”
Saturday’s launch was SpaceX’s third in four days. On Wednesday, the company launched NASA’s Crew-5 astronaut mission In addition to a set of 52 Starlink satellites.
The Saturday flight was originally supposed to take off on Thursday evening (October 6), but Falcon 9 A spontaneous abortion started soon (Opens in a new tab) before the planned takeoff. The miscarriage was caused by a small helium leak, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk He said on Twitter Thursday (Opens in a new tab). SpaceX then pushed the launch to Saturday for additional vehicle checks.
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