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

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Dec 29, 2024

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

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

The mission was delayed from a Dec. 20 attempt that saw the booster shut down as the countdown clock reached 0. SpaceX ended up switching boosters for the mission.

This one, flying for the seventh time, including this year’s Crew-8 and Polaris Dawn missions, made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.

It marked the 92nd launch from the Space Coast for 2024, already 20 more than the 72 seen from all providers in 2023, and one more to go.

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

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 60% chance for good launch conditions as a front moves though the Florida peninsula on Sunday.

The first-stage booster for that mission is flying for the 16th time having previously flown the Crew-6 mission among 15 other flights. It will aim for a recovery landing on the droneship 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 have flown 134 missions of its Falcon family of rockets with 62 from Cape Canaveral, 26 from KSC, including the two Falcon Heavy launches of the year, and 46 from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. It also flew its in-development Starship and Super Heavy on four suborbital test flights from its Texas launch site Starbase.

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

The other five were all from United Launch Alliance, which flew three different rockets from two launch pads. 2024 saw the debut of its Vulcan rocket in January, which flew a second time in the fall while also flying two Atlas V missions, including the Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Test, 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 human spaceflights carrying 16 people to space. Those include the Starliner flight from ULA to the International Space Station, and four launches of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.

SpaceX’s launches of the Crew-8 and Crew-9 missions as well as its flight for Axiom Space on the Ax-3 mission also went to the ISS. The Polaris Dawn mission took billionaire and the next nominee to head NASA, Jared Isaacman, and three others on an orbital mission that featured the first commercial space walk.

One rocket that didn’t launch in 2024, but could still, is Blue Origin’s New Glenn, which had been trying to get its debut mission off the ground before the end of the year.

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

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

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