SpaceX knocks out noon launch with busy August on tap
Published in Science & Technology News
SpaceX was back on the pad Tuesday knocking out the Space Coast’s 51st orbital launch of the year just before noon as part of what’s lining up to be a busy month in Florida.
A Falcon 9 on the Starlink 10-19 mission with 29 Starlink satellites lifted off at 11:58 a.m. Eastern time from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40. The launch came after the company scrubbed a Monday attempt.
The first-stage booster for this mission made its 18th trip to space with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.
Over the weekend, SpaceX had also put a mission that was delayed from May back on the launch manifest targeting liftoff later this week. It’s a launch that could bring a sonic boom to Central Florida.
The Globalstar 2-R Launch 1 mission, which had been targeting launch on May 18, is now looking to lift off from Cape Canaveral on Saturday during a launch window from 9:12-9:27 p.m. A backup on Aug. 16 has a 15-minute window that opens at 8:54 p.m.
The first-stage booster for this mission will be flying for the 33rd time and attempt a recovery landing back at Landing Zone 40, meaning many counties across the region will be under a sonic boom advisory.
No reason for the delay was announced, but the booster originally assigned to the flight has since been switched out.
After that, SpaceX has another Starlink launch targeting Aug. 20.
At the end of the month, SpaceX looks to fly its powerhouse Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center for only the second time this year, and 13th ever since its debut in 2018.
The rocket, which is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together, looks to launch NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope headed for a spot 1 million miles from Earth lifting off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A as early as Aug. 30 at 7:26 a.m.
SpaceX also has another resupply mission to the International Space Station scheduled to fly as earky as August and then what would be only the second human spaceflight of the year from Florida as early as Sept. 12 when the Crew-13 mission looks to fly up its four crew members.
SpaceX has flown all but seven of the Space Coast launches so far this year with United Launch Alliance responsible for five, Blue Origin for one and NASA for one.
With all six remaining Atlas V rockets in its stable reserved for Boeing Starliner, ULA’s next launch is likely for its Vulcan rocket, but that is awaiting remedies to two issues since its last launch.
One of those will be fixes to the BE-4 engines provided by Blue Origin, which recently identified a valve on the engine as the likely source for the explosion that destroyed one of its New Glenn rockets on the pad at Canaveral’s Launch Complex 36 earlier this year.
New Glenn’s BE-4 engines are slightly different than the ones provided to ULA, but fixes to the BE-4’s for both companies will be applied in the coming months.
ULA hopes to launch Vulcan before the end of the year still. So far it has only flown four times, but two of those have featured issues with its solid rocket boosters supplied by Northrop Grumman. The most recent saw one of the booster’s nozzles burn off on liftoff.
Blue Origin meanwhile has to wait until fixes at LC 36 are done after suffering major damage from the explosion.
CEO Dave Limp, though, says New Glenn is still on track to fly again before the end of the year.
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, which last flew on this year’s Artemis II mission, won’t fly again until Artemis III targeting launch in mid 2027.
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