The private space company SpaceX continues to impress with its achievements in the space industry. Having already set a record for the frequency of launches in 2023, the company is not going to rest on its laurels and plans to raise the bar even further in 2024. SpaceX’s most recent impressive success occurred on March 30, when two Falcon 9 rockets were launched in less than four hours, a new record for the company. This event proves once again that for SpaceX, rocket launches have become an ordinary event.
The first of the two launches took place at 17:52 EST (21:52 GMT) on Saturday, March 30. A Falcon 9 rocket launched the Eutelsat 36D telecommunications satellite into orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. A little later, at 21:30 US Eastern Time (01:30 GMT), another Falcon 9 rocket lifted 23 Starlink satellites into orbit from the Cape Canaveral launch site. Only 3 hours and 38 minutes passed between the starts.
A third launch was attempted at 10:30 p.m. EDT from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, but plans were changed due to deteriorating weather conditions.
Both rockets, launched on March 30, successfully returned their first stages to floating platforms in the ocean about 10 minutes after launch. These stages will be reused, continuing SpaceX’s practice of reusing rocket stages. The return of the second stage of the rocket was the company’s 260th successful return descent since the first successful return of the first stage of Falcon 9. One of the stages has returned to Earth for the 18th time, and the other for the 12th, demonstrating an incredible ability to reuse.
SpaceX plans to not only continue to break records for launches and stage returns in 2024, but everyone is looking forward to the successful launch of the Starship, which could take off into space up to nine times this year.
