SpaceX launched its 180th Falcon 9 rocket tonight, and 46th booster of the year, for a cadence of one flight every 6.1 days.

This first stage was making its 14th flight, and was a purely commercial mission. The customer received no discount for an "aged" booster.

Reuse is real.

SpaceX launches more mass to orbit than the rest of the world combined…

A trend which, currently, is accelerating…

SpaceX launched a telecom satellite to orbit and landed a rocket on a ship at sea early Thursday (Nov. 3).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying Eutelsat's Hotbird 13G satellite lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Thursday at 1:22 a.m. EDT (0522 GMT).

The Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth a little less than nine minutes later, touching down as planned on SpaceX's Just Read the Instructions droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

It was the seventh launch and landing for this particular first stage.

"The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, and one Starlink mission," SpaceX wrote in a prelaunch mission description.

(Crew-3 and Crew-4 were astronaut missions to the International Space Station, and CRS-22 and CRS-25 were uncrewed cargo flights to the orbiting lab.)

Hotbird 13G, meanwhile, kept flying atop the Falcon 9's upper stage, which deployed the satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit right on schedule, about 36 minutes after liftoff.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-tie...t-launch-2022/

SpaceX ties 42-year-old Soviet record with last launch of 2022

Been a while since this thread was at the top. It’s become so routine that we don’t even comment on Falcon launches and successful landings - last just yesterday launching another 21 Starlink satellites, around 4K now in orbit…

Meanwhile. Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete – targeting Friday, August 25 for launch of NASA’s Crew-7 mission to the ISS.

I have often had the same thought. How far they have come!

SpaceX and NASA are now targeting no earlier than Saturday, August 26 for Falcon 9 to launch Dragon to the @space_station.

The new launch date provides teams additional time to complete and discuss analysis. The vehicles remain healthy and crew is ready to fly → spacex.com/launches

Another successful launch and landing. Crew on way to ISS.

Lots of interest/concern at the RTLS re-entry burn.

Regardless it nailed the landing - which if there was an engine relight problem shows a remarkable level of redundancy in both hardware and software.

​​​​​​​SpaceX timeline called for 11-seconds of entry burn (short, but for RTLS), but this Booster only burned for about three seconds. Then fought a fair bit during the return but still managed to land!

Secondary to the smooth crew launch on Dragon, which all went well, but it is fascinating if the booster had an entry burn issue, but STILL got back to the landing site OK! Or SpaceX changed something and didn't update their timeline.

Let's see if we get an official answer during post-launch presser.…

Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, completing the first 17th launch and landing of a booster.

Another successful Falcon Heavy launch and twin booster recovery with the launch of the Psyche asteroid mission.

Two interesting points. First there will no longer be any attempts to recover a centre core, apparently the margins are two close and it’s not worth the effort. Second there was a big difference between the booster landings; no reason given, perhaps they’re playing around with different burn options to see which needs less fuel.

"Two close..."?

You've just one this week's Adrian Mole litricy prise for that!

​​​​​​​Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, completing the first 18th launch and landing of a booster.

Elon saying that the current SpaceX launch tempo of one every 3 days will increase to one every 2 days next year.

The mind boggling question is how many of those will be Starship and what the percentage increase in payload to orbit will become…

Super Heavy launch of x-37B from Canaveral now planned for 2014 ET Monday (0114 UTC Tuesday).

Launch delay was due t9 weather but 70% probability it will be suitable tonight.

SpaceX Twitter stream starts at 1958 ET.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/miss...sionId=ussf-52

Falcon Heavy launch scrubbed due to a ground side issue; vehicle and payload remain healthy.

Next launch window tonight at same time.

If SpaceX are going to increase launch cadence to one every two days then we are going to see more and more days with multiple launches as we did on the day of the Psyche Launch. As soon as the weather or a downrange anomaly scrubs the launch we will be stacking up rockets like mad. I wonder how long it will be before a Nimby starts complaining? 😁

Now targeting no earlier than Wednesday, December 13 for Falcon Heavy to launch USSF-52. The extra time allows teams to complete system checkouts ahead of liftoff.

Teams are also keeping an eye on weather, which is 40% favorable for launch

Spacex:

We are standing down from tomorrow’s Falcon Heavy launch of USSF-52 to perform additional system checkouts.

The payload remains healthy while teams work toward the next best launch opportunity.

We’re also keeping an eye on the weather and will announce a new launch date once confirmed with the Range.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/1...ry-spaceplane/

Effects of Falcon Heavy launch delay could ripple to downstream missions