On Thursday night, SpaceX came very close to shattering a record that has remained unbroken for more than fifty years. They achieved this by executing consecutive launches scheduled to take off from Florida’s Space Coast.
SpaceX plans to launch its Falcon 9 rocket with Starlink satellites from the Space Force’s Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at 10:20 p.m. ET.
Only 45 minutes later, a Falcon Heavy rocket was scheduled to launch from a location a few miles away. However, SpaceX cancelled the Falcon Heavy mission, which was supposed to put the Jupiter 3 satellite in orbit for broadband provider EchoStar. Now, Friday evening is the planned launch time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre’s Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A).
The responsibility for overseeing the Eastern Range, an authorised U.S. rocket range used for launches from Kennedy and Cape Canaveral, falls under the jurisdiction of the Space Launch Delta 45 division of the American Space Force.
According to SLD 45, “this may be the shortest interval between launches from the Eastern Range to Earth’s orbit.” “Join us as we try to rewrite the history books on the Space Coast!”
Regulators must set out time periods for rocket launches, in part because each mission requires more and more crowded airspace.
The missions would have been SpaceX’s 51st and 52nd launches of the year.
