A dawn view of the busiest rocket launch pad in the world, Space Launch Complex 40. A Falcon 9 rocket is 229.6 ft (70 m) tall and 12 ft (3.7 m) in diameter, or 21.2 stories — it would be a tall building in most city skylines. Unfortunately, a line of thunderstorms forced a launch scrub on this day, but still, being at a launch pad is a special thing any time.
United Launch Alliance launched an Atlas V 551 from Space Launch Complex 41 this morning carrying the USSF-51 classified national defense payload for the US Space Force. Liftoff was at 06:45 AM EDT, just as the sun was rising.
Today’s launch was the last national security payload for Atlas V, but the rocket will continue to fly until 2030 when it will loft astronauts aboard Starliner to the ISS. All remaining Atlas V launches are scheduled to take place in Cape Canaveral at SLC-41.
The next Atlas V scheduled to launch will be for Amazon’s Project Kuiper sometime in the fourth quarter of this year, carrying the first of its production satellites to orbit for the company’s planned LEO-based Internet service.
SpaceX launched the Starlink 10-9 mission early Saturday morning from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff was at 01:45 AM EDT, and Booster B1069 completed its 17th flight by successfully landing on the Automated Spaceport Drone Ship ‘Just Read The Instructions’ roughly 8.25 minutes after lifting off and lofting the payload towards orbit. Tonight’s flight was the first after the Starlink 9-3 failure that saw the company pause launching for 15 days.
SpaceX announced a successful payload deployment at 02:49 AM EDT.
After berthing in the Turn Basin by the Press Center yesterday, the Core Stage of Artemis II was offloaded today and moved into the VAB. The process began around 9 a.m. EDT and took nearly three hours until the 212-foot rocket traveled the relatively short distance—perhaps 1/2 kilometer—to the VAB.
SpaceX weathered lightning in the area until skies cleared early this evening, allowing the company to launch the Turksat-6A mission aboard a Falcon 9. Originally scheduled for 5:20 PM EDT, liftoff was delayed several times until 7:30 PM when the afternoon’s storms were far away enough to allow the rocket to safely ascend towards orbit.
SpaceX successfully launched another group of Starlink satellites into orbit this morning from its Space Launch Complex 40 facility to open the second half of the year. Liftoff was at 4:55 AM EDT.
This is currently on display at Kennedy Space Center Visitors’ Center.
NOTE: This article first published on April 27, 2024. It was written by me.
In his classic book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” writer Douglas Adams once said that “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
Adams is right, of course. Space is infinitely huge, but at the same time, near-Earth orbit is an increasingly crowded place. As of March 7, 2024, 9,494 active satellites were orbiting Earth, and there are another 3,300 inactive satellites.
NASA and SpaceX launched the GOES-U weather satellite for NOAA today from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center at 05:26 PM EDT, ten minutes after the launch window opened, with thunderstorms looming in the distance. With mission managers satisfied that the storms would not affect either the launch of landings of Falcon Heavy, the launch proceeded as planned.
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