SpaceX Breaks Record for Most Rocket Launches in a Year with Its 62nd Flight of the Falcon 9 on September 4.
Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites on September 4. (Photo: SpaceX).
SpaceX launches 21 Starlink Internet satellites into orbit aboard the Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:47 AM Hanoi time on September 4. This mission marks SpaceX’s 62nd orbital flight in 2023, surpassing the previous record of 61 flights achieved in 2022, according to founder and CEO Elon Musk.
Shortly after liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket flew southeast, aiming for an orbit at an angle of 43 degrees relative to the equator. About 2.5 minutes after launch, the first stage separated and landed on the drone ship named “Just Read the Instructions” located in the Bahamas in the Atlantic Ocean, 627 km from Cape Canaveral. This was the 10th launch and landing for this particular booster, designated B1077. Meanwhile, the second stage of the Falcon 9 continued its flight to deploy the 21 Starlink V2 mini satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) approximately 65 minutes after takeoff.
On average, SpaceX has launched a rocket into orbit every 4 days this year. The company completed 9 Falcon 9 launches in August alone. A total of 62 launches in one year is a record for the private aerospace company. According to Musk, SpaceX aims for 10 Falcon launches per month by the end of this year, increasing to 12 launches per month next year.
This marks the 16th launch of the new generation of Starlink satellites, which are larger and have four times the bandwidth of the previous version. Full-sized Starlink V2 satellites will be launched aboard SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship. According to data from astronomer Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the company has launched a total of 5,027 Starlink satellites into orbit.
