SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday (Oct. 8) on its record-breaking 14th mission, sending two commercial communications satellites into orbit.
The Falcon 9topped with Intelsat’s Galaxy 33 and Galaxy 34 satellites, lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 19:05 EDT (2305 GMT) on Saturday.
The Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth and landed on SpaceX’s A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship about 8.5 minutes after launch. The robotic ship was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, a few hundred miles off the coast of Florida.
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It was the 14th launch and landing of this particular thruster, according to a SpaceX mission description (opens in a new tab). The rocket previously helped launch the GPS III-3 and Turksat 5A satellites, the Transporter-2 shuttle mission and 10 large batches of SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites.
Fourteen missions is the record for a Falcon 9 first stage, first set last month during a launch that launched the BlueWalker 3 communications satellite and 34 Starlinks.
Galaxy 33 deployed about 33 minutes after liftoff, and Galaxy 34 followed suit five minutes later, SpaceX confirmed via Twitter (opens in new tab).
The duo “are the next satellites in Intelsat’s comprehensive Galaxy fleet renewal plan, a new generation of technology that will provide Intelsat Media customers in North America with high-performance media distribution capabilities and a unmatched penetration of cable headers,” Luxembourg-based Intelsat wrote. a statement (opens in a new tab). “It is critical to Intelsat’s US C-band cleanup strategy.”
Saturday’s launch was SpaceX’s third in a four-day stretch. On Wednesday, the company launched the Crew-5 astronaut mission for NASA, as well as a batch of 52 Starlink satellites.
Saturday’s flight was originally scheduled to launch Thursday evening (Oct. 6), but the Falcon 9 initiated an automatic abort shortly (opens in a new tab) before the scheduled liftoff. The abort was caused by a small helium leak, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said Thursday via Twitter (opens in a new tab). SpaceX pushed the launch forward until Saturday to do additional vehicle checks.
Mike Wall is the author of “Over there (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or enabled Facebook (opens in a new tab).