SpaceX Debuted its New Falcon 9 With a Delivery of 22 Starlink Satellites to Orbit This Morning
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster launched 22 Starlink Satellites to LEO from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9.20 a.m. ET (1320 GMT).
(Cape Canaveral, Florida) SpaceX‘s new Falcon 9 rocket debuted with this morning’s 9.20 a.m. ET (1320 GMT) launch of 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit (LEO) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Photo of this morning’s Starlink 10-5 mission launch – which sent 22 Starlink satellites to Space via SpaceX’s new Falcon 9 – courtesy of SpaceX on Instagram, @spacex.
The Starlink 10-5 mission marked the 57th launch of Starlink’s internet-enabling satellites thus far in 2024, according to Spaceflight Now. Starlink 10-5 also marked SpaceX’s 59th launch this year from Florida, and its 153rd launch of the year.
The debuting Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting the mission, B1085 in SpaceX’s feet, touched down on SpaceX’s droneship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ a little more than eight minutes after liftoff, marking the 80th landing on ASOG and SpaceX’s 341st booster landing to date, per Spaceflight Now.
The Falcon 9 booster, which is slated to launch the Crew 9 mission for NASA in September, was put through a static fire test on Monday (Aug. 19) night, per SpaceFlight Now.
In late July, Steve Stich, NASA’s manager of the Commercial Crew Program, said the booster encountered moisture intrusion as it was delivered by road from Texas to Florida, according to Spaceflight Now.
“There was some moisture that went into the fuel in the [liquid oxygen] tank of that booster when it was transported from McGregor to the Cape. The desiccant system didn’t perform the way it was supposed to,” Stich said, per Spaceflight now. “That desiccant system is supposed to keep that air dry and so, it didn’t perform the way it was supposed to. So we had to dry those tanks out and then replace a few components on the vehicle.”
Following the Starlink 10-5 mission, B1085 will be readied for the Crew-9 launch, which is being targeted for no earlier than Sept. 24, 2024 from Launch Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral, according to SpaceFlight Now.
