SpaceX Launches Bold Preview of Final Duo in 2024 Space Coast Mission Series


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Falcon 9
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

SpaceX executed a midnight launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday, but is scheduled for another midnight launch on Monday from Kennedy Space Center to conclude a record-breaking year for the Space Coast.

The launch on Sunday featured a Falcon 9 taking off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40, transporting communication satellites for Astranis Space Technologies Corp.

The mission had been postponed from a December 20 attempt where the booster shut down as the countdown reached zero. SpaceX ultimately decided to change boosters for this mission.

This booster, now on its seventh flight, including this year’s Crew-8 and Polaris Dawn missions, successfully performed a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.

This occasion marked the 92nd launch from the Space Coast for 2024, already surpassing the total of 72 achieved by all providers in 2023, with one more anticipated.

SpaceX’s last launch of the year is expected to occur at midnight with another Falcon 9 carrying 21 Starlink satellites, scheduled to lift off from KSC’s Pad 39-A during a launch window extending until 3:28 a.m. with backup slots on December 31 during the same period.

Space Launch Delta 45’s meteorological team predicts a 60% likelihood of favorable launch conditions as a front passes through the Florida peninsula on Sunday.

The first-stage booster for this mission will be flying for the 16th time, having previously supported the Crew-6 mission among its 15 prior flights. It aims for a recovery landing on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.

This launch will conclude a hectic weekend for SpaceX, which also carried out a Starlink mission from California late Saturday.

Elon Musk’s enterprise will have conducted 134 missions utilizing its Falcon rocket family, with 62 originating from Cape Canaveral, 26 from KSC (including the two Falcon Heavy launches this year), and 46 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Additionally, it carried out four suborbital test flights of its in-development Starship and Super Heavy from its Texas launch site, Starbase.

For the Space Coast, the KSC launch will mark 93 launches for the year, with all but five attributed to SpaceX.

The other five launches were solely from United Launch Alliance, which utilized three different rockets across two launch facilities. 2024 marked the introduction of its Vulcan rocket in January, which flew a second time in the autumn while also executing two Atlas V missions, including the Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test, all from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41. The year also witnessed the concluding launch of ULA’s Delta IV Heavy rocket from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 37.

Among the missions conducted from the Space Coast were five human spaceflights transporting 16 individuals to space. These include the Starliner flight from ULA to the International Space Station, alongside four launches of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

SpaceX’s missions for the Crew-8 and Crew-9, as well as its flight for Axiom Space on the Ax-3 mission, also reached the ISS. The Polaris Dawn mission carried billionaire Jared Isaacman, the next prospective nominee to lead NASA, along with three others on an orbital mission featuring the first commercial spacewalk.

One rocket that did not launch in 2024 but may do so is Blue Origin’s New Glenn, which has been striving to achieve its inaugural mission prior to the year’s end.

The Federal Aviation Administration granted Jeff Bezos’ company a launch license for the heavy-lift rocket on Friday, coinciding with Blue Origin’s successful test hot fire of the rocket on the pad at Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 36.

The FAA has authorized the NG-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder mission for a launch window late Monday from 11:30 p.m. into early Tuesday until 2:45 a.m., with a backup slot planned late New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day during the same time frame.

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

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SpaceX completes the first of the final two Space Coast launches for 2024 (2024, December 31)
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