SpaceX breaks launch pad turnaround record with midnight mission
https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/02/11/falcon-9-starlink-5-4-coverage/A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket hauled 55 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit just after midnight Sunday from Cape Canaveral, breaking a record for the shortest time between missions — five days — from the same SpaceX launch pad.
The mission was SpaceX’s 10th launch of the year, a pace of one launch every four days since Jan. 1. SpaceX is aiming to launch up to 100 Falcon rocket missions this year from launch pads in Florida and California, while teams in Texas ready for the first orbital test flight of the company’s giant new Starship launch vehicle.
SpaceX fired up the Starship rocket’s Super Heavy booster for a major ground test Thursday at the Starbase facility in South Texas. The booster ignited 31 of its 33 Raptor engines for a hold-down test-firing, as SpaceX hopes to ready the nearly 40-story-tall rocket for its inaugural launch later this spring.
For Sunday’s overnight mission from Florida, SpaceX employed its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket for another flight to deploy satellites for the Starlink internet network. With the 55 new satellites that traveled to space on Sunday’s mission, SpaceX has now launched 3,930 Starlink spacecraft since the first prototypes in 2018. That number includes test satellites no longer in service, and satellites that have already re-enter the atmosphere.
Liftoff of the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station occurred at 12:10:10 a.m. EST (0510:10 GMT) Sunday, defying a poor weather forecast to get off the ground before rain showers and brisk winds moved through the spaceport with the passage of a frontal boundary.
The 55 Starlink internet satellites mounted on top of the Falcon 9 rocket headed into an orbital plane that is part of SpaceX’s second-generation Starlink network, called Gen2. Sunday’s mission, known as Starlink 5-4, followed the first three Starlink launches into the Gen2 network in December and January.
The launch occurred five days, three hours, and 38 minutes after SpaceX’s previous mission from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, which carried a Spanish-owned communications satellite into orbit. That set a record for the shortest turnaround time between SpaceX launches from the same pad as the company continues to ramp up its blistering launch cadence.
SpaceX plans to eventually launch second-generation Starlink satellites on the new Starship mega-rocket. Those satellites will be larger and more capable than SpaceX’s current fleet of Starlink spacecraft, and will be capable of transmitting signals directly to cell phones. But with the Starship rocket still undergoing preparations for its first orbital test flight, SpaceX officials signaled they will start launching the Gen2 satellites on Falcon 9 rockets.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, suggested in August that the company could develop a miniature version of the Gen2 satellites to fit on the Falcon 9 rocket.
The satellites on the first three Gen2 launches appeared similar, or identical, to Starlink spacecraft SpaceX is already launching to complete its first-generation network, and not the larger Gen2 satellites destined to fly on the huge new Starship rocket, or even the mini Gen2 satellites Musk mentioned last year.
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