SpaceX knocks out 1st of final 2 Space Coast launches of 2024

SpaceX canceled a midnight launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday, but has a midnight launch on Monday from Kennedy Space Center to cap off a record year for the Space Coast.

Sunday’s launch saw a Falcon 9 rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Station’s Space Launch Complex 40, carrying communications satellites for Astranis Space Technologies Corp.

The mission was postponed from a December 20 attempt that saw the booster shut down as the countdown clock reached zero. SpaceX ended up having to swap boosters for the mission.

This aircraft, which flew for the seventh time, including this year’s Crew-8 and Polaris Dawn missions, made a recovery landing aboard the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

This marked the 92nd Space Coast launch of 2024, 20 times more than the 72 seen by all providers in 2023, with one more to go.

SpaceX’s final launch of the year could come at midnight with another Falcon 9 carrying 21 Starlink satellites scheduled to lift off from KSC’s Pad 39-A during a launch window that lasts until 3:28 a.m. and backup opportunities on December 31. During the same window. .

Space Launch Weather Squadron Delta 45 is forecasting a 60% chance of good launch conditions as the front moves across the Florida peninsula on Sunday.

The first stage booster is flying this mission for the 16th time, having previously flown the Crew-6 mission among 15 other flights. You will aim for a recovery landing on the drone and just read the instructions in the Atlantic.

It will mark the end of a busy weekend for SpaceX, which also flew a Starlink mission from California late Saturday.

Elon Musk’s company will fly 134 missions from the Falcon family of rockets, including 62 from Cape Canaveral, 26 from KSC, including this year’s two Falcon Heavy launches, and 46 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It also flew the Starship and Super Heavy vehicles under development on four suborbital test flights from the Texas Starbase launch site.

For the Space Coast, the KSC launch will mark the 93rd launch of the year, all but five from SpaceX.

The other five were all from United Launch Alliance, which launched three different rockets from two launch pads. 2024 saw the January debut of the Vulcan rocket, which flew for a second time in the fall while also flying two Atlas V missions, including a crew flight test of the Boeing Starliner, all from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41. The year also saw the final launch of ULA’s Delta IV Heavy rocket from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 37.

Among the Space Coast launches were five manned spaceflights carrying 16 people into space. Those include ULA’s Starliner flight to the International Space Station, and four launches of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX’s launches of the Crew-8 and Crew-9 missions as well as its trip to Axiom Space aboard the Ax-3 mission to the International Space Station also went. The Polaris Dawn mission took billionaire and next candidate to head NASA, Jared Isaacman, and three others on an orbital mission that marked the first commercial spacewalk.

One rocket that won’t launch in 2024, but could still do so, is Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, which has been attempting to launch its first mission on Earth before the end of the year.

The Federal Aviation Administration granted Jeff Bezos’ company a launch license for the heavy-lift rocket only on Friday, and that’s also when Blue Origin was finally able to conduct a hot test fire of the rocket on the pad at Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 36.

The FAA authorized the NG-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder mission for a late Monday launch window during an 11:30 p.m. to early Tuesday window to 2:45 a.m. and a late New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day backup. New Year during the same window.

2024 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.