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Elon Musk’s SpaceX started the year strong after launching its first rocket in 2023 that placed 114 satellites in low orbit.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 9:56 a.m. ET from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with a payload of satellites to measure greenhouse gas emissions, various devices to monitor agriculture, and 10 new satellites. from Starlink Internet.
This mission, known as Transporter-6, follows SpaceX’s record year of 61 launches in 2022, but the company is targeting as many as 100 this year.
It also comes as SpaceX announced it is raising $750 million in a new funding round that values the rocket and satellite company at $137 billion from investors.
SpaceX launched its first rocket in 2023. The Falcon 9 lifted off at 9:56 a.m. ET from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The sky was clear over the Falcon 9 as it rocketed into space on Tuesday.
This was the second time SpaceX had attempted to launch one of its Falcon 9 first stages 15 times, as this rocket previously launched the GPS III-3 satellite for the US Space Force, three other commercial missions, and 10 batches of satellites. Starlink.
The 114 satellites, owned by operators in 23 counties, include 36 small SuperDove CubeSats for Planet’s commercial Earth imaging constellation.
The mission also saw a 400-pound satellite for EOS Data Analytics, a Silicon Valley startup founded by Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian entrepreneur and investor, launched aboard the rocket.
This spacecraft is designed to capture images of the Earth’s surface, with a focus on agriculture, and is the largest device launched on Tuesday.
The US Space Force used this mission to deploy a prototype cloud imaging device, and military satellites from Norway and the Netherlands were also involved.
About eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the 230-foot-tall first-stage booster returned to Earth, where it touched down at Cape Canaveral Landing Zone 1 and ended the mission with window-shaking sonic booms.
And the latest batch of Starlink satellites brings the massive constellation to over 3,300 in low-Earth orbit.
This comes as SpaceX announced last month that it has over a million active subscribers.
The mission kicks off what SpaceX hopes will be another record year for launches.
This mission, known as Transporter-6, follows SpaceX’s record year of 61 launches in 2022, but the company is targeting as many as 100 this year.
The mission delivered 114 satellites, owned by operators in 23 counties, into low-Earth orbit.
The company has several crewed launches on the books for NASA, Axiom Space and Polaris Dawn, which could see the first civilian spacewalk.
SpaceX plans to launch five Falcon Heavy missions and the highly anticipated launch of Starship at the company’s starbase in Texas.
The launch of Starship, scheduled for the first half of 2023, has been plagued by a series of delays.
Musk had said in September that his $216 million ultra-super-heavy rocket could finally launch into space the following month, though this did not materialize and has now been postponed to 2023.
About eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the 230-foot-tall first-stage booster returned to Earth, where it touched down at Cape Canaveral Landing Zone 1 and ended the mission with window-shaking sonic booms.
SpaceX hopes to beat last year’s launch record and could include the first orbital launch of its Starship rocket.
SpaceX originally planned to launch Starship into orbit in January 2022, but was forced to delay following an environmental assessment of the Boca Chica launch site in Texas.
The last time the vehicle took off was when a Starship prototype tagged SN15 completed a high-altitude flight within Earth’s atmosphere and landed unexploded on May 5, 2021.
Since then, SpaceX has been preparing for Starship’s first orbital demonstration flight, in which the vehicle will take off on a Super Heavy Booster for the first time.
Starship’s first orbital flight will be powered by Raptor 2 engines, which Musk says are “much more capable and reliable” than older models, providing 253 tons of thrust at sea level.
Starship and the Super Heavy rocket are collectively known as Starship and “represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to transport both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond,” according to SpaceX.
“Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the capacity to transport more than 110 tons to Earth orbit,” he added.
To date, the Starship series of rockets has conducted nine test flights, some of which resulted in successful short-distance jumps, while others caused explosions or crash landings.