SpaceX To Launch Booster For 20th Time Tomorrow Night – Talk of Titusville

Booster B1062 lifts the OneWeb 17 Mission in 2023 Photo: Charles Boyer / ToT

Starlink launches are almost as routine as airline flights these days, as SpaceX has had regular service from the Cape and Vandenberg Space Force Base in order to add to their ever-growing constellation of low-Earth orbit based communications satellites. Every few days, theres another Starlink mission.

Key to the regular pace of their launches is the reuseability of the companys Falcon 9 rockets. While the second stage is new for each flight, the fairings and of course the booster used for each launch is reused with regularity, greatly reducing the costs of payload delivery. This has not only allowed SpaceX to drastically reduce its cost through reducing the capital expenditure of building an entirely new rocket for each launch, its regular rotation of several boosters in its stable has allowed them to maintain a torrid pace where over 6,000 Starlink satellites have been placed in orbit by Falcon 9 rockets.

SpaceX has flown four boosters nineteen times so far: B1058, which was retired after a post-recovery incident led to the spacecraft toppling at sea and being damaged; B1060, now being refurbished prior to its next flight; B1061, which is awaiting flight assignment, and B1062, which is now being prepared for flight NET Friday for the Starlink 6-49 mission. Liftoff is planned to happen tomorrow, April 12th, between 9:22 PM and 12:48 AM EDT on April 13th.

On their website, SpaceX confirmed this information: This will be the 20th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, OneWeb Launch 17, ARABSAT BADR-8, and 12 Starlink missions. Following stage separation, the first stage will land on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

While the company did not specifically mention B1062, as you can see from its flight record below, SpaceX has identified B1062 will be the first to get to 20 launches.

B1062 was first used for a GPS launch in 2020, and its last launch was in March of this year when it launched Starlink 6-44. Its most notable missions so far are Inspiration 4 and Axiom-1, both of which were crewed. Perhaps almost as notable will be the 20th flight, which could come as soon as tomorrow evening.

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SpaceX To Launch Booster For 20th Time Tomorrow Night - Talk of Titusville