Up to date 4:47 p.m. EST (2147 UTC): SpaceX landed the primary stage booster on its droneship.

SpaceX capped off the Veteran’s Day vacation with the second in a of pair of Falcon 9 rocket launches from Florida’s House Coast.

Following a Sunday scrub of the Starlink 6-69 mission, SpaceX managed to ship up 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites at 4:28 p.m. EST (2128 UTC) Monday night. It adopted the launch of the Koreasat-6A mission earlier within the afternoon.

This Starlink launch allowed SpaceX to proceed testing the bounds of its Falcon 9 rocket. The launch of 24 of the V2 Mini number of the satellite tv for pc now seems to be the utmost that may flown on a single Falcon 9 launch to this specific shell.

SpaceX has solely as soon as earlier than launched 24 of the V2 mini Starlink satellites for the Group 6 shell from Cape Canaveral on Starlink 6-39 in February. After that, subsequent missions maxed out at 23 satellites.



The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail quantity B1080 within the SpaceX fleet, launched for a twelfth time. It beforehand supported the launches of 4 missions to the Worldwide House Station (Ax-2, Ax-3, Cygnus NG-21 and CRS-30), the European House Company’s (ESA) Euclid observatory, the SES 24 communications satellite tv for pc and 4 prior Starlink missions.

A bit greater than eight minutes after liftoff, B1080 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This marked the 84th touchdown on ASOG.

Ramping up launches

The launch of 24 Starlink satellites got here as SpaceX seems to be to ramp up its launch cadence to get as shut a potential to the aim it set at the beginning of the 12 months of 144 missions – a goal it admits it could not attain. Sunday’s mission would be the firm’s third launch in 4 days and it plans to launch a Korean communications satellite tv for pc Monday, adopted by two extra Starlink supply missions earlier than the top of the week.

Starlink 6-69 was SpaceX’s 108th Falcon 9 rocket launch this 12 months between its two launch pads in Florida and single pad in California.

Following a launch from Vandenberg House Power Base on Friday at 10:14 p.m. PDT (1:14 a.m. EST, 0614 UTC on Saturday), Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vp of launch, mentioned that the corporate was lately accepted to launch as much as 50 occasions this 12 months from VSFB.

“Don’t get it twisted… @SpaceX and @SpaceForceDoD are dedicated to nationwide safety AND defending the atmosphere,” Dontchev mentioned in a put up on X, previously Twitter. “As a part of the approval for elevated cadence, we’re implementing a really strong and detailed species monitoring and mitigation program.

“We’ll use information and science, not politics, to guard our planet as we push additional into the photo voltaic system and make life multi-planetary!”

Wonderful work by the @SpaceX west coast workforce on launch #37(!!!) from Vandenberg this 12 months. We’re so grateful for our wonderful partnership with the @SLDelta30, @SpaceForceDoD, and @DeptofDefense. A lot effort from all events went into clearing the way in which for elevated launch…

— Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver) November 9, 2024

Again in mid-October, the Los Angeles Occasions reported that the California Coastal Fee rejected a request by SpaceX to extend their variety of permitted launch to 50. The proposal was additionally backed by U.S. House Power and U.S. Air Power officers.

The pushback from commissioners was reportedly related to the ramped up political exercise by SpaceX Founder Elon Musk within the lead as much as the presidential election.

“This firm is owned by the richest particular person on this planet with direct management of what may very well be essentially the most expansive communications system within the planet,” Commissioner Mike Wilson mentioned. “Simply final week that particular person was speaking about political retribution.”

The fee additionally mentioned SpaceX wanted to do extra within the realm of environmental monitoring and mitigation efforts. The L.A. Occasions reported that navy personnel did agree “to extend monitoring and to arrange an interagency working group that features U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Nationwide Marine Fisheries Service and the Federal Aviation Administration to deal with considerations because the variety of launches will increase.”

The Occasions additionally famous that SpaceX has plans to extend as much as 100 launches from California in 2025.