SpaceX successfully launches Starlink mission on sixth try – Spaceflight Now

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Starlink 4-34 mission will launch SpaceX’s next batch of 54 Starlink broadband satellites. Follow us on Twitter.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Sunday night after five days of weather delays, hauling 54 more Starlink satellites to orbit as the company continues its push toward completing more than 60 missions this year.

Liftoff of the 229-foot-tall (60-meter) Falcon 9 rocket occurred at 8:18:40 p.m. EDT Sunday (0018:40 GMT Monday) to begin SpaceX’s Starlink 4-34 mission. The Falcon 9 took off powered by nine kerosene-fueled Merlin 1D engines, firing into a nighttime sky as it soared northeast from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The mission finally got off the ground after five days of delays, which began Tuesday night when the launch team called off a countdown just before starting to load propellants into the Falcon 9 rocket. Lightning flashes lit up the sky over Florida’s Space Coast throughout the evening. Similar weather conditions Wednesday night forced officials to call another scrub before tanking, and SpaceX stopped the countdown at about T-minus 30 seconds Thursday night as weather remained “no go” for launch.

It was a similar story Friday night as SpaceX loaded propellants into the Falcon 9, but stopped the countdown just inside of T-minus 60 seconds. Teams initially targeted another launch attempt Saturday, but SpaceX announced Saturday evening the mission would be delayed to Sunday night.

This flight marked SpaceX’s 42nd Falcon 9 launch so far in 2022. It was the 40th space launch attempt overall from Florida’s Space Coast this year, including launches by SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Astra.

About 15 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage released 54 Starlink satellites over the North Atlantic Ocean traveling at a velocity of some 17,000 mph. The satellites totaled about 36,800 pounds, or 16.7 metric tons, in payload mass.

The Starlink 4-34 mission was the third of as many as five Falcon 9 missions on SpaceX’s schedule this month. Tom Ochinero, SpaceX’s vice president of commercial sales, said last week at the World Satellite Business Week conference in Paris that the company aims to complete more than 60 launches this year, with the goal of 100 rocket missions in 2023, continuing a dramatic uptick in SpaceX’s launch cadence.

The higher launch rate has been aided by shorter turnarounds between missions at launch pads in Florida and California, and SpaceX’s reuse of Falcon 9 boosters and payload fairings. Launches carrying satellites for SpaceX’s own Starlink internet network, like the mission Sunday night, have accounted for about two-thirds of the company’s Falcon 9 flights so far this year.

The next Falcon 9 launch for the Starlink network was scheduled for Sept. 19 from Cape Canaveral, but is likely to be delayed until the last week of September as a ripple effect of the weather-related scrubs for the…