SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket concludes record 12th mission

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket made a record 12th launch on April 21st and also achieved its 12th landing.
The two-stage Falcon 9 was launched Thursday at 1:51 pm EDT (1751 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida, putting 53 SpaceX Starlink Internet satellites into orbit.
This is the twelfth lift-off of the first stage of this particular Falcon 9, linking the SpaceX reuse record set by another Starlink launch last month. And that’s probably not the last flight of this booster. Approximately 8.5 minutes after takeoff, SpaceX droneship Just Read The Instructions, located off the coast of Florida, descended to a safe landing, according to the Space.com news portal.
“During that time, the second stage of Falcon 9 continued to put the Starlink spacecraft into orbit. 53 satellites were deployed into the parking orbit as planned,” said SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. It was announced via Twitter about 1 hour and 20 minutes after takeoff.
Starlink Mega Constellation provides internet services to customers around the world, including Ukraine. In fact, SpaceX has worked with the United States Agency for International Development to send thousands of Starlink terminals to Ukraine to maintain communication capabilities that have been degraded by the ongoing Russian invasion.
SpaceX has launched more than 2,300 Starlink satellites so far, but plans to loft more. According to documents submitted by the company, the next-generation version of Mega Constellation could consist of up to 30,000 spacecraft.
And the Starlink satellite is rising at an active pace these days. Nine of the 15 missions SpaceX has launched so far this year are Starlink-only flights.
Another of those 15 was a crew flight — the launch of the Ax-1 mission on April 8 sent four civilian astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX will also soon be launched by another crew member. NASA’s Crew-4 mission will send four professional astronauts to orbital laboratories for long-term stays.
Crew 4 is currently scheduled to take off by April 26th. The date was recently delayed by a few days due to the expected bad weather in the Ax-1’s splashdown zone, with the planned departure of the mission from April 19th to April. twenty three.
NASA officials say a grace period of at least two days is required between the Ax-1 splashdown and the Crew-4 launch.

https://ift.tt/xkaNsJ1 SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket concludes record 12th mission

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