SpaceX marked the end of the year with a launch record on December 28th. The commercial spaceflight company ended the year with 98 launches, including 91 Falcon 9, 5 Falcon Heavy, and two Starship launches.
Thursday night’s “double header” saw the successful launching of two rockets and recovering three boosters within less than 3 hours of each other from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The double-header event showcased the formidable capabilities of the company’s Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 rockets.
The first of the 2 SpaceX launches, took place at 8:07 p.m. EST. The spectacular night time launch saw a Falcon Heavy rocket majestically ascend into the sky, backdropped by a nearly full moon. This mission was particularly significant as it was the first time SpaceX was entrusted with launching the X-37B space plane for the United States Space Force. The X-37B, an unmanned and highly secretive military space plane developed by Boeing, embarked on its seventh mission but marked its inaugural journey aboard a SpaceX rocket.
While specific details of the X-37B’s payload remain confidential, it is known that the mission aims to explore the impacts of prolonged spaceflight on humans. To this end, the payload included a variety of seeds for leafy greens, vegetables, and grains such as cauliflower, amara, scarlet frill, garnet giant, radishes, pac choi, peppers, brachypodium, lettuce, mizuna, tomato, Swiss chard, onions, wheat, cucumber, and rice. These seeds are part of a NASA initiative to study how these plants grow in space and their potential as food sources for astronauts on long-duration missions.
The launch of the Falcon Heavy faced several delays before its successful lift-off. Originally scheduled for December 10, the launch was postponed due to ground system checks and the replacement of at least one engine on the rocket.
Less than three hours later, at 11:01 p.m. EST, SpaceX achieved another milestone with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket. This second launch deployed 23 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit, contributing to SpaceX’s expansive Starlink Internet satellite constellation. With this launch, SpaceX neared a total of 100 launches for the year, an impressive increase of nearly 70% over the previous year’s total of 61 launches. Most of these launches involved Falcon 9 rockets, though a few, like the one carrying the X-37B space plane, utilized the more powerful Falcon Heavy.
The Starlink project has been ambitious in its scope, aiming to provide global broadband internet coverage. As of last month, the constellation consisted of over 5,200 small satellites in orbit, with plans to expand up to 12,000 and potentially as many as 42,000 satellites in the future. However, this rapid deployment has attracted criticism for contributing to space debris, light pollution, and posing hazards in low Earth orbit.
This particular booster marked its 12th flight, successfully landing on the drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ approximately 8 1/2 minutes after lift-off, demonstrating SpaceX’s commitment to sustainable space exploration practices.
These back-to-back launches exemplify SpaceX’s growing prowess and reliability in the space industry, underscoring a year of remarkable achievements and setting the stage for its future endeavors in space exploration and satellite internet provision.
