{"id":11450,"date":"2022-06-19T22:14:04","date_gmt":"2022-06-19T14:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-third-falcon-9-rocket-in-less-than-two-days\/"},"modified":"2022-06-19T22:14:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-19T14:14:04","slug":"spacex-launches-third-falcon-9-rocket-in-less-than-two-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-third-falcon-9-rocket-in-less-than-two-days\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches third Falcon 9 rocket in less than two days"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with the Globalstar FM15 satellite. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX hauled a Globalstar communications satellite into orbit early Sunday from Cape Canaveral, pulling off the third Falcon 9 rocket flight in 36 hours, the fastest sequence of three missions by any commercial launch company in history.<\/p>\n

A spare spacecraft built more than a decade ago for Globalstar\u2019s satellite phone and messaging network was tucked inside the Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s payload shroud for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:27:36 a.m. EDT (0427:36 GMT).<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9 shot off the launch pad at Cape Canaveral with 1.7 million pounds of thrust from nine Merlin main engines. The engines vectored their nozzles to guide the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket northeast from Florida\u2019s Space Coast, lining up with an orbital plane in Globalstar\u2019s satellite fleet.<\/p>\n

The rocket surpassed the speed of sound in about one minute, and shut down its booster stage about two-and-a-half minutes into the flight. A few seconds later, the booster dropped away to head toward a SpaceX recovery platform, or drone ship, parked in the Atlantic Ocean east of Charleston, South Carolina.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9\u2019s first stage \u2014 itself 15 stories tall \u2014 landed on the drone ship about 10 minutes after liftoff, adding a ninth trip to space to the booster\u2019s logbook.<\/p>\n

The upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket fired its single Merlin engine three times, stepping through different orbits before finally reaching an altitude of about 700 miles (1,126 kilometers) to deploy the Globalstar FM15 communications satellite nearly two hours into the mission.<\/p>\n

SpaceX said the upper stage reached the mission\u2019s target orbit, and officials celebrated the company\u2019s third successful launch in less than two days.<\/p>\n

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SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket streaks through the night sky after liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 12:27 a.m. EDT (0427 GM) Sunday. Credit: Michael Cain \/ Spaceflight Now \/ Coldlife Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The trifecta of Falcon 9 missions began at 12:09 p.m. EDT (1609 GMT) Friday with the launch of 53 Starlink internet satellites from the Kennedy Space Center. That mission set a record with the 13th flight of a reusable Falcon booster, which returned to a landing on one of SpaceX\u2019s drone ships in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n

SpaceX teams at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California launched another Falcon 9 rocket at 10:19 a.m. EDT (7:19 a.m. PDT; 1419 GMT) Saturday with the German military\u2019s SARah 1 radar reconnaissance satellite. The Falcon booster used on the SARah 1 descended back Vandenberg for an onshore landing.<\/p>\n

With Sunday\u2019s mission for Globalstar, SpaceX notched three Falcon 9 flights in 36 hours, 18 minutes, the shortest span between three missions that any commercial rocket company has achieved.<\/p>\n

The launches marked the 158th, 159th, and 160th flights of a Falcon 9 rocket overall, and the 24th, 25th, and 26th Falcon 9 missions this year, trying the 26-launch tally SpaceX achieved in the entire year of 2020. SpaceX is on pace to surpass the 31-launch mark \u2014 its total from last year \u2014 by the end of July.<\/p>\n

Company officials are aiming for more than 50 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches in 2022.<\/p>\n

Some aspects of Sunday\u2019s launch caused observers to raise questions about other spacecraft that may have been deployed alongside the Globalstar satellite.<\/p>\n

SpaceX did not mention any other payloads in its live launch webcast or on the Globalstar mission page on its website.<\/p>\n

But the relatively light weight of the Globalstar satellite would typically leave enough propellant reserve on the Falcon 9\u2019s booster to return to landing. Instead, Sunday\u2019s mission featured a landing on SpaceX\u2019s offshore recovery platform.<\/p>\n

The live webcast of Sunday\u2019s launch provided by SpaceX did not show any on-board camera views of the Globalstar satellite until an hour into the mission, an unusual practice for SpaceX\u2019s commercial launches. When the live on-board camera views began airing live, the Globalstar satellite was visible mounted to a structure on the upper stage appeared to be designed to accommodate other payloads.<\/p>\n

If there were additional satellites on Sunday\u2019s launch, they were already deployed from the Falcon 9 rocket when the live camera views began showing on SpaceX\u2019s webcast.<\/p>\n