SpaceX launch reaches 2022 Space Coast record for blastoffs
A SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday night marked the Space Coast’s 57th launch of the year, equaling the record total reached in 2022.
A Falcon 9 with 22 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites lifted off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:36 p.m. This was the first-stage booster’s 16th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.
For SpaceX, it was its 53rd mission from either Canaveral or Kennedy Space Center this year while United Launch Alliance has flown three times and Relativity Space has flown once. SpaceX is the lone launch provider this year from KSC having flown 11 times while ULA, SpaceX and Relativity combined for 46 launches from Canaveral.
The majority of SpaceX launches have been for its growing Starlink constellation. This marks the 31st Starlink launch from the Space Coast.
But SpaceX has also flown all three U.S.-based crewed missions this year with Crew-6, Axiom 2 and Crew-7 all having launched from KSC. KSC has also hosted four of the Falcon Heavy launches including last week’s Psyche launch, the first time NASA has used the powerhouse rocket.
The pace between launches has picked up as well, with only an eight-hour and 42-minute gap between the Psyche launch that happened Friday morning and a Starlink launch on Friday evening.
That’s the shortest time between launches since four Gemini program missions that flew in 1966. Those featured double launches from two different pads on what was then Cape Kennedy.
With about 11 weeks to go, the Space Coast could end up with more than 70 launches for the year if it maintains its pace.
SpaceX has several more Starlink flights planned. Its CRS-29 resupply mission come could as early as Nov. 1 and what could be the first successful launch of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services missions on Nov. 14, which aims to send the Intuitive Machines IM-1 lunar lander on its way to the moon.
There could also be one more Falcon Heavy launch before the end of the year on the USSF-52 mission for the Space Force.