SpaceX sent up two more rockets over the weekend from the Space Coast.
First up was a Falcon 9 on the Galileo L12 mission carrying global navigation satellites for the European Commission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 8:34 p.m.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/NolsTPxBBU
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 28, 2024
The first-stage booster flew for a record-tying 20th time, but was expended getting the payload to medium-Earth orbit.
The second launch flew Sunday when a Falcon 9 carrying 23 Starlink satellites took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 6:08 p.m.
Liftoff and ascent of Falcon 9 pic.twitter.com/bUyObEgTXf
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 28, 2024
The first-stage booster flew for the 13th time and made a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.
These marked the 31st and 32nd launches of 2024 from the Space Coast, all but two of which have been by SpaceX.
Astronauts arrive to KSC as 1st crew for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft
United Launch Alliance flew the other two, with the first ever Vulcan Centaur launch in January and the final Delta IV Heavy launch earlier this month.
It has its third lined up for May 6, though, and with its third different rocket when an Atlas V is slated to launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner at 10:34 p.m. from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41 with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station.
The pair arrived to KSC on Thursday to prepare for what will be the first crewed mission of Starliner, which is aiming to join SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as one of two spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to provide ferry service to and from the ISS.
