SpaceX Got No Chill As It Launches Three Missions In 20 Hours!

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Ahead of Starship Flight 6 tomorrow, SpaceX has successfully launched and landed three Falcon 9 boosters from its facilities in California and Florida in roughly 20 hours. As of today, the firm has launched 114 successful Falcon 9 missions to set a new record in its cadence and beat its previous record of 96 Falcon 9 launches in 2023. Two of SpaceX’s latest launches were for third-party customers. In contrast, the solo launch from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California sent another batch of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). The Starlink launch was the only mission to LEO, as the other two spacecraft were destined for a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).

SpaceX Launches Three Missions In Less Than A Day – With Two Sent To GTO

SpaceX’s first launch was from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday. Dubbed as the TD7 mission for the Australian telecommunications company Singtel Optus. The mission is classified with few details about its payload publicly available. According to SpaceX, the TD7 mission was a “communications satellite,” and as is typically the case with SpaceX’s national security launches, such as those for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the mission live stream ended before payload deployment in order to protect the spacecraft’s final destination.

Following the TD7 launch, SpaceX’s next mission took off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This sent a fresh batch of 20 Starlink satellites into LEO, out of which 13 were SpaceX’s satellites for its direct-to-cell constellation.

The launch itself was a typical affair, with the Falcon 9 lifting off from Vandenberg at 9:53 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday which was four and a half hours after the TD7 launch. The Starlink launch saw SpaceX reuse a Falcon 9 booster for the 20th time, while the TD7 mission had reused the Falcon 9 for the 16th time.

SpaceX’s third launch was from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It took place at 1:31 p.m. ET today, roughly fifteen and a half hours after the Starlink mission. The third and final Falcon 9 launch sent a communications satellite for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).

Called the NSIL GSAT-N2 mission, this satellite will provide coverage to Dish TV India for satellite programming. The ISRO operates its rockets that regularly send payloads to space, but the space agency chose to launch the NSIL satellite on the Falcon 9 since it overshot the weight requirements for India’s domestic launch vehicles. SpaceX was awarded the contract by ISRO’s commercial division, New Space India Limited, and it marked a shift from ISRO, which had previously relied on the French firm Arianespace to conduct its launches.

The booster that launched the Indian satellite completed its 19th flight. Most of its previous missions have been for SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, while others include missions for NASA,  Japanese space startup iSpace and European communications provider SES S.A.

SpaceX’s reuse of the Falcon 9 has enabled it to become the launch provider of choice for all of the world’s major satellite customers. A reusable booster significantly reduces the cost per mission, which SpaceX transfers to customers.