SpaceX's Falcon-9 rocket has achieved a remarkable feat, completing three significant launches within a mere 20-hour timeframe, the company announced on Tuesday.
The flurry of launches commenced on Monday morning when Elon Musk's aerospace company dispatched a four-member crew to the International Space Station (ISS). Later that same day, in the afternoon, SpaceX launched 53 satellites as part of the Transporter-10 rideshare flight. The momentum continued into the early hours of Tuesday morning, with the successful deployment of 23 Starlink satellites into orbit.
In a social media post on Tuesday, SpaceX celebrated the trifecta, stating, "Three Falcon 9 launches in 20 hours, delivering: 4 crewmembers to the @Space_Station; 53 rideshare spacecraft; 23 @Starlink satellites."
Since 2020, SpaceX has been a pivotal player in NASA's astronaut launch services, facilitating missions like Crew-8, which commenced at 10:53 p.m. EST on Sunday. This mission, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is manned by NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Notably, this marks the first spaceflight for Epps, Dominick, and Grebenkin, while Barratt is embarking on his third stint aboard the ISS.
The subsequent Transporter-10 mission blasted off at 5:05 p.m. ET on Monday from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Among its payloads were 53 satellites, including True Anomaly's Jackal spacecraft, numerous cubesats, nanosats, and the Aires satellite manufactured by Apex.
Finally, SpaceX's latest batch of 23 Starlink internet satellites was launched at 6:56 p.m. ET on Monday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This brings SpaceX's tally of operational Starlink satellites in orbit to over 5,000, with approval for launching up to 12,000 more.
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