Late Saturday night, a Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with one other 23 Starlink satellites delivered into orbit.
Launch occurred at 11:00 pm ET (04:00 UTC), continuing the build-out of the Group 6 Starlink shell with this mission being Group 6-31.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/4GOJmqLxKd
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 3, 2023
The 23 V2 mini Starlinks were inserted right into a 43-degree orbital inclination, the identical because the previous group 6 missions. The satellites separated from the 2nd stage just over an hour after the launch.
This was the 89th orbital mission of the 12 months for SpaceX as they give the impression of being to remain on the right track to succeed in 100 launches in a 12 months, and with a majority of launches coming from SLC-40, the common pad turnaround time between launches has been slightly below 5 days as SpaceX teams maximize the capabilities to enable a rapid back to back launch cadence.
Looking ahead at the remainder of the month, there are currently five more launches for SpaceX scheduled out for December 14th, including a Falcon Heavy from LC-39A. After December 14th, there could possibly be a likelihood of at the very least eight more launches if schedules can hold, nonetheless, these are usually not set in stone, and various delays from weather to technical issues could arise, and just a few could slip into the brand new 12 months.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship pic.twitter.com/YpDBMZgvJL
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 3, 2023
Back to this weekend’s launch, the Falcon 9 tasked with this mission was Booster 1078, which flew for its sixth time. B1078 took a bit longer, with its sixth flight having last flown 78 days prior. The typical turnaround time for boosters has been hovering around 45 days with just a few exceptions like Falcon Heavy side cores or Falcons assigned to Crew missions.
B1078 made a successful landing on the droneship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” about eight and a half minutes after launch, and as usual, SpaceX will try and get better the payload fairings to be used on one other mission.
Coming up next for SpaceX are two Starlink launches, one from Florida no sooner than December sixth and one from California no sooner than December eighth, followed by the Falcon Heavy launch currently scheduled for December tenth after a slight delay.