A pair of TV broadcasting satellites for Intelsat launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Saturday at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT). SpaceX aborted a countdown Thursday due to a small helium leak, then called off another launch attempt Friday evening for allow time for additional vehicle checkouts.
For the third time in 31 hours, SpaceX is poised to fire a Falcon 9 rocket into space Thursday, this time on a mission from Cape Canaveral with two commercial Intelsat television broadcasting satellites heading for geostationary orbit as part of a multibillion-dollar program to clear C-band frequencies for 5G wireless services.
Seven hours after a Falcon 9 launcher carried a four-person crew into orbit from Florida, SpaceX sent aloft another Falcon 9 from a foggy California spaceport Wednesday evening with 52 more Starlink internet satellites, setting a new record for the shortest interval between two flights of SpaceX’s workhorse rocket.
Two NASA astronauts, a veteran Japanese space flier, and the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a U.S. spacecraft since 2002 soared into orbit Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in what could signal an easing of tension between NASA and the new leadership of the Russian space agency.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with 52 Starlink internet satellites, following a two-day delay to allow more time for pre-flight checkouts and to give priority to launch of a SpaceX crew mission launch from Florida. Liftoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg occurred at 4:10 p.m. PDT (7:10 p.m. EDT; 2310 GMT).
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