SpaceX plans a record 16th launch of the same Falcon 9 rocket with new Starlink satellites
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will set a new record for re-launches tonight (July 9-10). You can watch the rocket launch live on SpaceX’s YouTube channel or in the video below the article.
The Falcon 9 rocket, equipped with 22 next-generation Starlink satellites, is scheduled to launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Sunday, July 9, at 20:36 Eastern Time (03:36 Kyiv time, July 10). This will be the 16th mission for this first stage rocket, Space.com reports.
If all goes according to plan, the first stage will return to Earth for another landing in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida after the mission is completed. It will land on the deck of SpaceX’s “Just Read the Instructions” unmanned vessel about 8.5 minutes after launch.
At the same time, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 will continue to deliver 22 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. Separation of this batch from the second stage is scheduled for 62 minutes after launch.
The satellites to be launched are apparently “V2 Minis” – a newer and more powerful version of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellite. They are actually larger than the previous version. Approximately 50 pieces of the previous version 1.5 can fit on a Falcon 9. But still, version 2 for the Falcon 9 is a “mini” compared to the final full-size V2 satellites, weighing 1.25 tons (1.1 metric tons), which were created and will be launched aboard the giant Starship, SpaceX’s next generation spacecraft. V2 Minis satellites were created as a scaled-down version of V2 so that they could be launched on a Falcon 9 rocket until Starship becomes operational.
“V2 minis include key technologies – such as more powerful phase array antennas and the use of E-band for feedback – that will allow Starlink to deliver about 4x the capacity per satellite of earlier versions,” SpaceX said in a Twitter post in February.
The first stage of Falcon 9, which will fly on Sunday, was last launched in December 2022. Among its 15 previous flights is Demo-2, SpaceX’s first-ever manned mission that sent two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in 2020.
This particular rocket is not the only one of its kind that exceeds the reusability limit; another Falcon 9 first stage has 15 flights under its belt, and several others have 14 launches each.
Starship, if all goes according to plan, will raise the barrier to reuse to a new level. This gigantic vehicle, the most powerful rocket ever built by humans, is designed to be completely reusable. And both of its stages will be able to make several flights in one day, as SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has stated.
As a reminder, Falcon 9 has only the first stage, which is reused. Fairing flaps are also sometimes used to hide satellites. But the second stage is always new and not reused.
You can watch the broadcast of the historic launch here:
