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Month: September 2023

SpaceX sends up 200th reflight with Cape Canaveral launch

SpaceX sends up 200th reflight with Cape Canaveral launch

SpaceX’s reusability juggernaut kept rolling with a Space Coast launch Saturday night that marked the 200th time the company has relied on a previously launched booster to get its payloads to space.

A Falcon 9 rocket flying on the Starlink 6-18 mission carrying 22 of its Starlink satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 11:38 p.m.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink internet satellites launches from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Fla., Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink internet satellites launches from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Fla., Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023. (Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP)

The first-stage booster made a record-tying 17th flight with a recovery landing down range on droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.

It marked the 200th reuse of a booster among its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. It’s the 228th recovery since the first success in December 2015. SpaceX has not lost a first stage since February 2021 nailing 154 attempts in a row since.

It’s the 266th successful launch overall since the first Falcon 1 success in 2008 and 67th this year among its launch pads at Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The workhorse Falcon 9 began flying in 2010 and it has not had a launch failure since 2015. read more