ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX was able to send up a Falcon 9 with a pair of satellites from Cape Canaveral on Saturday at sunset to complete a trio of launches for the Space Coast this week.
Tuesday saw an Atlas V lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station while Wednesday saw the liftoff of the Crew-5 mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center sending four passengers to the International Space Station.
SpaceX was in line to make it three launches in three days, but scrubbed the Thursday launch attempt, aborted with 30 seconds left on the countdown clock. But Saturday’s liftoff in clear skies and a setting sun went off without a hitch.
The company opted to skip a Friday attempt to allow it more time for teams to look at the launch vehicle.
Liftoff took place at 7:05 p.m. from Space Launch Complex 40 carrying the Intelsat G-33/G-34 satellites to geosynchronous transfer orbit.
The first-stage booster made a record-tying 14th landing on SpaceX’s droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean.
The launch was SpaceX’s 45th this calendar year from both Florida and California. It’s also the 44th launch among all companies from the Space Coast’s two launch facilities with most coming from SpaceX, which sent up 14 from KSC and 21 others from Cape Canaveral. United Launch Alliance has added another six and Astra Space two from their Canaveral launch pads.
Newly promoted Major General Stephen Purdy who leads the U.S. Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45, which overseas the Eastern Range, noted the Atlas launch on Tuesday was actually the 50th in the previous 365 days. So SpaceX’s on Saturday night makes it 52 launches in 52 weeks.
“I am continuously humbled to serve alongside the incredible Airmen and Guardians of SLD 45. Thank you for enabling us to #SetThePaceForSpace,” he posted to Twitter.
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(Orlando Sentinel editor David Harris contributed to this report.)
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