SpaceX Launches 60 More Starlink Satellites; Second Starlink Launch Planned for Friday
On Thursday, February 4 at 1:19 a.m. EST, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage successfully returned to Earth and landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, completing this booster’s fifth launch and landing.
SpaceX will launch a second batch of 60 Starlink satellites on Friday, February 5 at 5:14 a.m. EST from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX will webcast the launch starting 15 minutes before liftoff at www.spacex.com.
SpaceX has now launched 1,085 of the broadband satellites into orbit. A total of 1,021 remain in orbit.
12 responses to “SpaceX Launches 60 More Starlink Satellites; Second Starlink Launch Planned for Friday”
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Congratulations!
What was the turn around time of the booster?
A record low of 27 days ?.
They’re getting seriously good at this Heinlein stuff.
Now subtract the travel time, and time spent in the integration flow for this most recent mission. Couldn’t have spent much more than two weeks in actual refurbishment.
Where is Lee? Wasn’t he saying something about how refurbishment time isn’t improving or some such nonsense?
It’s good to see that they are reducing turnaround time in a responsible manner. It would not be good for them to do stunt turnarounds to placate the critics. It is a business, with our entertainment being a side effect.
I’m glad to see they have gotten it down to 27 days. That’s 5 days better than the previous 32 days (twice). That’s also still 26 days from the “rapid reuse” that Musk recently said would be required (for SH/SS) to go to Mars. Pay no attention to the fact that Musk claimed several years ago they’d be turning them around in less than 24 hours by now. I’m thinking that given the realities of reuse of rocket stages and launch pads, Musk is going to have to do with SH/SS what he’s effectively done with F9. Which is to have enough stages and pads to keep up a steady flight rate without relying on “rapid reuse”. I’ll predict that no F9, and no SH/SS stage will ever be reused faster than 15 days (and I really hope I’m wrong about that). That doesn’t mean I don’t think the system will work. I think both systems are great, I just don’t think they are going to work like Musk and the fanboys claim they will.
SpaceX has already done a lot of alteration to “the realities.” More alterations to come. Stay tuned.
The second launch has slipped to Sunday. https://twitter.com/EmreKel…
I’m guessing B1049, as the current oldest booster in the fleet, needs more TLC than its younger siblings.
Think the delay is to give the fairing catching crews of Ms. Chief and Ms. Tree a break. The sea was rough for the last few days in the recovery zone. Even Elon tweeted on the sea state for booster landing. A few days of delay to be better able to recover the fairing halves at $3M a piece seems reasonable.
looks like it is a booster issue. But it appears there will be another Starlink launch from SLC next week as well. Good to see the pace picking up on Starlink.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/…
This year is really going to flesh out the reuse numbers. Go SpaceX!