SpaceX sets launch record with sunset liftoff from Canaveral

SpaceX sent up its 14th rocket from the Space Coast this year with a sunset launch Friday just hours after it sent up a Falcon 9 in California, setting a record turnaround time for Elon Musk’s company.

The second Falcon 9 launch, carrying two satellites for Luxembourg-based communications company SES, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:38 p.m.

The SES 18 and SES 19 satellites built by Northrop Grumman will add to SES’s C-band television and data services for the United States. SES has been a common SpaceX customer, including becoming its first commercial payload in 2013, and the first to fly on a reused booster in 2017.

The first-stage booster for this mission flew for the sixth time and was recovered once again on the SpaceX drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.

All of the Space Coast’s launches this year have been from SpaceX having sent up four missions from Kennedy Space Center and 10 from Cape Canaveral.

New rocket company Relativity Space has had two launch attempts that were scrubbed from Cape Canaveral of its 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket this month, and has announced it will try a third time Wednesday night.

United Launch Alliance has several missions on tap this year, but its first, an Atlas V launch of the crewed CST-100 Starliner, is not targeted until mid- to late-April. Its first launch of the new Vulcan Centaur rocket isn’t expected until May.

Among all launch providers, up to 92 orbital Space Coast flights could happen in 2023, according to Space Launch Delta 45, the Space Force outfit that oversees launches from Canaveral and KSC.

SpaceX would make up the majority of those, and, combined with its launches from California and its test site in Texas, the company could send 100 rockets to space this year.

Earlier Friday, SpaceX launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, sending up 52 more of its growing constellation of Starlink internet satellites with a successful liftoff at 3:21 p.m., and recovered its first-stage booster on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean.

The four hours and 17 minutes between launches beats the company’s previous record of 7 hours and 20 minutes between launches set on Oct. 5, 2022.

With both launches in the bag, SpaceX has knocked out 19 missions across all of its launch facilities this year.

To date, the company has flown 218 successful orbital missions since 2008. That includes two Falcon 1 flights, 211 Falcon 9 missions and five of its powerhouse Falcon Heavy.

It’s also managed 180 successful landings of first-stage boosters across both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions, and been able to refly those boosters 152 times.

Follow Orlando Sentinel space coverage at Facebook.com/goforlaunchsentinel.