SpaceX broke records Monday night as its 62nd mission this year launched 21 of Starlink internet satellites into orbit. Earlier Monday, Elon Musk's rocket company also returned a crew from the International Space Station following a multi-month stay in orbit. The completed missions mark further advancements in reusable spacecraft as SpaceX works toward eventually colonizing Mars.
SpaceX delivered 21 Starlink satellites into orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:47 p.m. ET Monday. The launch was SpaceX's 62nd of the year, surpassing the previous record set in 2022.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket returned, as planned, to a drone ship about 9 minutes after liftoff. The upper stage of the Falcon 9 deployed the satellites into low Earth orbit roughly an hour after liftoff.
The mission marked the 10th launch and landing for the Falcon 9's first-stage booster, according to SpaceX's website.
Earlier in the day, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft brought home the four Crew-6 mission astronauts from their post at the International Space Station. The crew — made up of two NASA astronauts, an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates and a cosmonaut from the Russian federal space agency, Roscosmos — conducted spacewalks, science and maintenance activities during their 186 days in orbit following their March launch.
SpaceX Launch Schedule Ramps Up
"Great work by the SpaceX team successfully launching 61 Flacon rocket missions this year!" SpaceX and Tesla owner Elon Musk posted on his X platform, formerly known as Twitter, on Sept. 2 before the Starlink mission.
SpaceX delivered roughly 80% of all Earth payload mass to orbit this year, according to Musk. China supplied about 10% with the rest of the world making up the remaining 10%, the executive said.
Musk said SpaceX hopes to achieve 10 Falcon flights per month by the end of the year and improving to 12 per month in 2024.
SpaceX has completed a total of 261 launches, 223 landings with 195 total re-flights, according to the company's website.
The next SpaceX Starlink launch is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 8 with planned takeoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to spaceflight tracker Space Coast Launches. The next SpaceX collaboration with NASA won't occur until at least February 2024, according to NASA's website. For that mission, SpaceX will transport Crew-8 astronauts to the International Space Station. Hardware allocations for the Dragon and Falcon rockets are planned in the coming months, NASA says.
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