Late Saturday night, Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The launch took place at 11:00 PM ET (4:00 UTC) and continued construction of the Group 6 Starlink shell on the Group 6-31 mission.
The 23 V2 Mini Starlinks were inserted at the same 43-degree orbital inclination as previous Group 6 missions. The satellite separated from the second stage just over an hour after launch.
For SpaceX, this is the 89th orbital mission of the year and the company is on track for 100 launches per year, with the majority of launches coming from SLC-40 and the pad’s average time between launches. The turnaround time is less than 5 times. The SpaceX team is taking full advantage of its ability to enable rapid sequential launch cadences.
Looking ahead to the rest of the month, SpaceX currently has five more launches scheduled for Dec. 14, including a Falcon Heavy from an LC-39A. At least eight more launches could take place after December 14 if the schedule holds, but these are not set in stone and are subject to various delays, including weather and technical issues. Some may even slip into the new year.
Returning to this weekend’s launch, the Falcon 9 tasked with this mission was booster 1078, making it its sixth flight. B1078’s sixth and last flight was 78 days ago, so it took a little longer. The average booster turnaround time has remained at around 45 days, with a few exceptions such as the Falcon Heavy Side Core and Falcons assigned to crew missions.
B1078 successfully landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas about eight and a half minutes after liftoff, and as always, SpaceX will attempt to recover the payload fairing for use in another mission.
Next up for SpaceX are two Starlink launches, one from Florida by Dec. 6 and one from California by Dec. 8; Falcon Heavy’s launch is currently scheduled for December 10th, after a slight delay.
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