Falcon 9

A small spacecraft set to launch on a collision course with an asteroid has been encapsulated inside the payload fairing of its Falcon 9 rocket for blastoff from California this week, a mission that will mark SpaceX’s first launch with a NASA solar system science probe.

After a lull in launch activity the last few months, SpaceX plans to close out 2021 with a spurt of missions from all three of the company’s active launch pads in Florida and California, with five or more Falcon 9 flights planned before the end of the year.

SpaceX launched a reusable Falcon 9 booster on its ninth flight Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on a mission to deploy 53 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit. The mission, which was delayed from Friday due to weather, lifted off at 7:19 a.m. EST (1219 GMT), and was the first flight for SpaceX’s Starlink network to launch from Florida in nearly six months.

Just ten hours after launching a crew capsule from a nearby pad, SpaceX ignited the main engines on a reused Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Thursday morning for a brief test-firing ahead of a planned liftoff Friday to begin a new phase of deploying the company’s Starlink satellite internet network.

SpaceX launched four astronauts toward the International Space Station on a brand new Dragon spacecraft Wednesday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, continuing the company’s swift acceleration of crew missions just two days after another capsule returned to Earth.

Raja Chari, a veteran U.S. Air Force test pilot and combat veteran awaiting launch on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, is the first rookie astronaut to command a NASA space mission since the final crew blasted off to the Skylab space station in 1973.