12th Flight of Falcon 9 Rocket Breaks Record

SpaceX’s two-stage Falcon 9 rocket took off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA on Saturday, March 19, and carried 53 internet satellites of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite into low Earth orbit.

The launch of Falcon 9 may not sound like a very new and interesting event, considering that SpaceX has so far sent 2,282 Starlink satellites, 2 of which are still operational; however, there is actually something that makes this launch quite special.

SpaceX set a new record for rocket availability

With this flight, for the first time in its history, a Falcon 9 was launched 12 times and successfully returned to Earth. returned. The company broke another record thanks to this unprecedented event in the ‘reuse of rockets’, which it is already in a pioneering position. This flight, which is the 12th launch of Falcon 9’s first stage, means SpaceX has set a new ‘standard’ for rocket reusability.

Falcon 9 made its 12th landing in the first place and landed for a definite landing approximately nine minutes after the takeoff of the drone named ‘Just Read The Instructions’, which was deployed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. In the second phase, the rocket deployed 53 Starlink spacecraft to their designated orbits within 1 hour of takeoff.

The same booster previously launched the RADARSAT Constellation mission for the Canadian Space Agency in June 2019, SpaceX’s first manned flight Demo-2 in May 2020, and the SXM-7 satellite for SiriusXM in December 2020. and, in addition, has launched eight different Starlink missions into space.

Starlink continues to grow

Serving all over the world, Starlink has recently made a great impression by providing free internet access to Ukraine under Russian occupation. In this process, SpaceX sent Starlink terminals and necessary equipment to the warring country; In this way, communication was prevented from being interrupted.

However, the Starlink network continues to grow continuously. SpaceX, which has permission to send 12,000 Starlink satellites into orbit, has finally applied to the international regulator for approval to send 30,000 more satellites.