SpaceX pulled off a doubleheader overnight on Friday (Nov. 14), launching two rockets less than four hours apart from Florida’s Space Coast.
The action started Friday at 10:08 p.m. EST (0308 GMT on Saturday, Nov. 15), when a Falcon 9 rocket topped with 29 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites lifted offfrom historic Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
Everything went according to plan on that mission. The Falcon 9’s first stage landed in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” about 8.5 minutes after liftoff, and the rocket’s upper stage deployed the 29 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) about 56 minutes later.
Then, at 1:44 a.m. EST (0644 GMT) on Saturday, another Falcon 9 launched 29 Starlinks from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which is next door to KSC.
That rocket’s first stage aced its landing, which occurred in the Atlantic on the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions.” If all goes to plan, the 29 Starlink spacecraft will be deployed into LEO about 65 minutes after liftoff.
The two launches were the 145th and 146th Falcon 9 missions of the year for SpaceX.
More than 100 of these flights have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, by far the largest satellite network ever assembled. There are currently more than 8,900 operational Starlink satellites in LEO, and the number is growing all the time.
Three hours and 36 minutes between launches is quite quick, but it’s not a record; on Aug. 31, 2024, SpaceX launched two Falcon 9 Starlink missions just 65 minutes apart. One flew from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and the other lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
