Mission Reports

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Aug. 4 occurred 12 hours and 39 minutes after the liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the shortest turnaround between two orbital-class missions at the Florida spaceport since Sept. 7 and 8, 1967.

Fifty-two satellites are on the way to join SpaceX’s Starlink internet network after a sky-lighting blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday night, a mission that included the 3,000th spacecraft to launch for the Starlink constellation.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket and 52 more Starlink internet satellites Tuesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The commercial mission took off bound for low Earth orbit at 10:14 p.m. EDT (0214 GMT), and the Falcon 9’s reusable first stage landed on an offshore drone ship. The launch team bypassed a launch opportunity earlier Tuesday evening due to unfavorable upper level winds.

SpaceX continues to launch Falcon 9 rockets from Launch Complex 39A in Florida as construction work advances on the nearby tower for the company’s next-generation Starship rocket. Overnight Tuesday, SpaceX rolled another Falcon 9 to pad 39A for liftoff with the next batch of Starlink internet satellites, just hours after another section of the Starship gantry tower arrived at the pad.

South Korea’s first moon orbiter launched Thursday from Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, heading off on a mission to survey potential lunar landing sites and search for water ice hidden inside shadowed craters near the moon’s poles.

South Korea’s first mission to the moon lifted off at 7:08 p.m. EDT (2308 GMT) Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The launch was the second of the day from Florida’s Space Coast, marking the shortest turnaround between launches at Cape Canaveral since 1967.