SpaceX had to wait out some weather, but still managed to fly a telecom satellite into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station early Thursday.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Intelsat Galaxy 37/Horizons-4 satellite lifted off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 after waiting out poor weather conditions 45 minutes into a two-hour window at 1 a.m.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/GVP7zobtv3
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 3, 2023
The mission is part of Intelsat’s Galaxy fleet refresh plan that provides North American coverage for its customers. The first Galaxy satellite launched 40 years ago in 1983.
The first-stage booster made its sixth flight and SpaceX was able to make its recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. It’s the 213th time the company has recovered boosters from either its Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rockets, and the 186th reflight of a booster.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship pic.twitter.com/miU7GVqx3q
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 3, 2023
It’s the 39th launch from the Space Coast for 2023 with all but two coming from SpaceX.
It follows a busy Friday last week when SpaceX managed both a Falcon 9 launch from SLC 40 just after midnight and a Falcon Heavy launch from neighboring Kennedy Space Center 23 hours later.
The next KSC launch won’t be until the Crew-7 mission now targeting no earlier than Aug. 25. That gives the company enough time to reconfigure the pad from the massive Falcon Heavy requirements to a crewed launch.
That will be the third U.S.-based crewed flight of the year following the launches of Crew-6 last March and the Axiom Space Ax-2 mission in May, both courtesy of SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Including launches from California, the Intelsat flight marks the year’s 52nd orbital launch for SpaceX, which is well on its way to breaking its 2022 record of 61 launches. It is also the company’s 251st successful orbital launch since the first Falcon 1 made it to space in 2008.
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