Another Space Coast night launch Friday marked the 60th liftoff from the Space Coast for the year, this time with a booster flying for a record 18th time.
A Falcon 9 carrying another 23 of Elon Musk’s company’s Starlink satellites took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:37 p.m.
The historic booster that had previously flown on the Crew Demo-2 mission that took up the first astronauts on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon back in May 2020 and has since flown on the ANASIS-11, CRS-21, Transporter-1, Transporter-3 and now 13 Starlink missions.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, completing the first 18th launch and landing of a booster pic.twitter.com/GIjqVFR4hc
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 4, 2023
It made another successful recovery landing in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
The 60 Space Coast launches continues to build on the record surpassed last month when missions from either Canaveral or neighboring KSC topped the 57 managed in 2002.
So far this year, Canaveral has sent up 49 rockets and KSC 11. All but four launches have been from SpaceX, which also has flown 23 times from California.
![By MEAD GRUVER (Associated Press) The human species has topped 8 billion, with longer lifespans offsetting fewer births, but world population growth continues a long-term trend of slowing down, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday. The bureau estimates the global population exceeded the threshold Sept. 26, a precise date the agency said to take with […]](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/India_Festival_49284.jpg?w=525 "By MEAD GRUVER (Associated Press) The human species has topped 8 billion, with longer lifespans offsetting fewer births, but world population growth continues a long-term trend of slowing down, the U.S. Census Bureau said Thursday. The bureau estimates the global population exceeded the threshold Sept. 26, a precise date the agency said to take with […]")
