SpaceX was hoping to make it two launches in three days as it prepared to blast off its Falcon 9 this evening.
On Monday SpaceX launched 10 satellites to bolster the global data communications network for Virginia-based company, Iridium.
The EchoStar 105/SES-11 is to blast off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
The EchoStar 105/SES-11 is to blast off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida
The satellite will be deployed approximately 36 minutes after liftoff.
Falcon 9’s first stage for the EchoStar 105/SES-11 mission previously supported SpaceX’s 10th resupply mission to the International Space Station (CRS-10) in February of this year.
Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will attempt a landing on the ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
On Monday, a SpaceX rocket blasted off at 5:37 am (1237 GMT), before sunrise, from Vandenberg Air Force base in California.
About seven minutes after launch, the tall portion of the Falcon 9, known as the first stage, returned to Earth for an upright landing.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket like this one launched in May 2017 blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force base in California carrying 10 satellites for the Virginia-based company Iridium
This part of the vehicle fired its rocket engines and made a controlled landing on a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean.
‘A successful landing of the first stage,’ SpaceX commentator John Innsbrucker said on the company’s live webcast, as applause erupted at SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California.
Grainy video showed the rocket standing upright in the predawn darkness on the droneship, named ‘Just Read the Instructions.’
The landing was a success for SpaceX’s ongoing effort to re-use expensive rocket parts instead of jettisoning them into the ocean after launch.
About an hour later, SpaceX confirmed that all the satellites were successfully deployed.
‘We are 10 for 10,’ Innsbrucker said.
SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket on Monday carrying 10 satellites to bolster the global data communications network for Virginia-based company, Iridium. The white rocket blasted off at 5:37 am (1237 GMT)
About seven minutes after launch, the tall portion of the Falcon 9, known as the first stage, returned to Earth for an upright landing
In total SpaceX, which is headed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, is launching a series of 75 satellites for Iridium’s satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT by 2018.
Monday’s launch was the third of eight planned for Iridium, as part of a $3 billion project to upgrade the company’s global communications network.
SpaceX’s latest flight comes after a string of successful launches this summer.
Last month, SpaceX launched the Air Force’s super-secret space shuttle, a technology tester capable of spending years in orbit.
The unmanned Falcon rocket blasted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, as schools and businesses boarded up for Hurricane Irma.
It was the fifth flight for one of these crewless minishuttles, known as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, and marks the first time Elon Musk’s aerospace firm has provided liftoff for the experimental craft.
And, in August, a SpaceX capsule rocketed to the International Space Station on Monday, carrying a supercomputer, tons of science research, plus ice cream.
As has become customary on these cargo flights, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral shortly after liftoff, a key to its long-term effort to recycle rockets and reduce costs.