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SpaceX knocked out 2nd Space Coast launch on same day as Falcon Heavy success

After abiding NASA’s request to give its Psyche mission on a Falcon Heavy launch its full attention this week, SpaceX lined up and knocked out a Falcon 9 launch just hours later on Friday.

The day began with Falcon Heavy making its eighth ever flight lifting off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A cutting through haze and clouds at 10:19 a.m. to successfully bring to space NASA’s $700 million probe that had a six-year flight ahead of it for a rendezvous with a metal-rich asteroid also named Psyche.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches NASA’s Psyche asteroid probe

Two of Falcon Heavy’s three boosters came back for a landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zones 1 and 2 bringing with it the massive double sonic booms that resonated across the Space Coast.

Sandwiched in between Falcon Heavy’s launch pad and its booster landing zones was the Falcon 9 rocket on Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 that had been holding off launch with its Starlink satellite payload since weather forced it to stand down last Sunday.

“We have requested certain setbacks and SpaceX has accommodated our request and we thank them very much for working with us on that,” said NASA’s Tim Dunn, senior launch director from NASA’s Launch Services Program this week during a Psyche mission status press conference. “We did ask them to stand down all those Starlinks earlier this week. It gives our team time to review that prior launch status to see if there’s anything applicable that we would want to know before we commit to a Psyche launch.”

Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/kw7BM1e9H1

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2023

But with Psyche safely in space, SpaceX was ready to go and weather stayed green for it to launch that Falcon 9 eight hours and 42 minutes later carrying another 22 Starlink internet satellites into space.

Its first-stage booster, making its 14th flight, also made a successful recovery landing, but downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship pic.twitter.com/nceEn8bsGj

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2023

Falcon Heavy became the Space Coast’s 55th and the Falcon 9 was its 56th launch of the year, just one shy of 2022’s record 57 launches.

SpaceX has flown all by four of this year’s orbital flights from Florida with United Launch Alliance adding three and Relativity Space adding one.