Space Talk

Timelapse of SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying Starlink 6-33 to orbit as seen from Titusville’s Rotary Park on December 28, 2023. Photo: Charles Boyer / Talk of Titusville

Less than three hours after SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy lifted off tonight at Kennedy Space Center’s LC-39A, the company launched a Falcon 9 from SLC-40 carrying the Starlink 6-36 mission. Falcon Heavy lifted off at 8:07pm local time, and two hours and forty-eight minutes later, Falcon 9 roared off its pad at 11:01pm. Roughly eight and one-half minutes later, the booster used for this flight successfully touched down aboard the droneship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ near the Bahamas, marking SpaceX’s third successful booster soft-landing of the night.

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Falcon Heavy Carrying USSF-52 Lifts Off At Kennedy Space Center, December 28, 2023
Photo: Richard Gallagher / Florida Media Now

SpaceX and the US Space Force launched Falcon Heavy carrying the USSF-52 mission from Kennedy Space Center at 8:07pm Eastern Standard Time under partly-cloudy skies and huge crowds gathered in Titusville and Cape Canaveral. After separating from the core first stage of the rocket, the two side boosters arced across the sky and returned to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station safely some eight and a half minutes later.

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Falcon Heavy side boosters during their final landing burn in January 2023.
Photo: Charles Boyer

Folks who are interested in seeing Falcon Heavy launch tomorrow evening still have a chance to purchase tickets from the closest vantage point available to the general public: the Apollo Saturn V Center is 4.0 miles from the launch pad, and that location gives viewers the most intense launch viewing experience possible. The returning boosters will be 11.3 miles to the south, with a clear view of their final approach and landing burns.

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SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying Starlink 6-32 lifts off at 12:33am EST on December 23. 2023
Photo: Charles Boyer / Talk of Titusville

SpaceX launched a record-breaking mission shortly after midnight this morning at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station when it lofted 33 Starlink satellites to orbit in a mission the company designated Starlink 6-32: it flew a Falcon 9 booster successfully for the 19th time.

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Artist’s concept of a SpaceX commercial lunar lander on the Moon. 
Image: SpaceX, via NASA

NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug Wheelock recently participated in testing a sub-scale mockup elevator for SpaceX’s Starship human landing system (HLS) at the company’s Hawthorne, California headquarters. Astronaut input is a vital component of spacecraft design, giving the people who will actually use the equipment a chance to test progress so far and to provide feedback from a crew perspective. This feedback often informs and evolves the design.

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Alper Gezeravcı, Marcus Wandt, Michael López-Alegría, Walter Villadei
Photo: Axiom Space

Axiom Mission 3, the first all-European private mission to the International Space Station, will launch no earlier than January 17, 2024 from Kennedy Space Center, the company announced today. The astronauts will fly aboard a Crew Dragon boosted by a SpaceX Falcon 9 and will depart from LC-39A.

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Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is encapsulated inside its payload fairing in preparation for launch atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket on the Certification-1 (Cert-1) mission earlier this month. Photo: United Launch Alliance

Astrobiotics’ Peregrine Lunar Lander is set to be mounted on top of its ride to space today, according to United Launch Alliance. Their Vulcan rocket, which is set to make its debut NET January 8, 2024, will carry Peregrine to Earth orbit, after which the lander will travel to the Moon and if all goes well, complete a soft landing on the lunar surface. Once placed aboard the 202-foot tall rocket, Peregrine and Vulcan preparations will continue until they are launched. No T-0 time has yet been announced.

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Timelapse of Falcon 9 Carrying Starlink 6-34 Soaring Above Space Coast Skies on December 18, 2023.
Photo: Charles Boyer

After eight days of bad weather cleared from Space Coast skies, SpaceX got right back to work and sent a Falcon 9 to orbit from Pad SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station late Monday evening. Tonight’s payload was another 33 Starlink satellites with the mission designation Starlink 6-34.

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The Hubble Space Telescope returns to orbit as an improved telescope after its second servicing mission in February 1997. Credit: NASA

NASA announced recently that it has resumed Hubble Space Telescope operations after a fifteen day outage following gyroscope issues aboard the venerable orbiting telescope. Observations on some instruments resumed December 8, and have continued for the past week, with others slated to come on line at some point in the near future.

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