San Francisco: With a Falcon 9 rocket and then a Falcon Heavy rocket planned as little as 45 minutes apart, SpaceX almost broke a 56-year rocket record.
However, Falcon Heavy launch was scrubbed barely a minute before launch.
According to Space Launch Delta 45, the unit of the US Space Force, the pair of SpaceX launches would have broken a record set by the Gemini 11 mission in September 1966.
“SLD 45 has the opportunity to make history tonight, as we support two launches between 02:04 UTC and 04:44 UTC. This could represent the shortest time between launches from the ER on record. The previous was 1 hour 37 minutes on Sept 12, 1966 when Gemini 11 & Titan-11 launched,” Space Launch Delta 45 wrote on X (formerly knwn as Twitter).
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket was first targeted to carry Hughes Network Systems’ ultra high-density satellite Jupiter 3 at 11:04 p.m. ET Wednesday (8:34 am IST, Thursday) from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
After being scrubbed barely a minute before liftoff, another planned attempt on Thursday night (Friday in IST) was also nixed, citing “complete vehicle checkouts”. SpaceX now targets Friday at 11:04 pm EDT (8:34 am on Saturday).
Jupiter 3, which is the world's largest private communications satellite, will double the capacity of the Hughes Jupiter satellite fleet. It will also support in-flight Wi-Fi, maritime connections, enterprise networks, backhaul for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and Community Wi-Fi solutions, in addition to satellite internet connectivity across North and South America. Meanwhile, Falcon 9 on Friday successfully launched 22 Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida at 12:01 am ET (9:31Â am IST)
“Deployment of 22 @Starlink satellites confirmed,” the company said on X (formerly knwn as Twitter), adding that the feat is “SpaceX’s 50th mission of 2023”. —IANS
