SpaceX Launches Two Missions in One Day Written 16 October 2023

Falcon9-Launch-13Oct2023-SciNews-YT-framegrab

SpaceX Starlink 113 launch, October 13, 2023. | Credit: SciNews YouTube; framegrab

Orlando (FL) Sentinel reported that after abiding by NASA’s request “to give its Psyche mission on a Falcon Heavy launch its full attention this week, SpaceX lined up and knocked out a Falcon 9 launch just hours later on Friday.” The day “began with Falcon Heavy making its eighth ever flight lifting off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A cutting through haze and clouds at 10:19 a.m. to successfully bring to space NASA’s $700 million probe that had a six-year flight ahead of it for a rendezvous with a metal-rich asteroid also named Psyche.” Sandwiched in between Falcon Heavy’s launch pad “and its booster landing zones was the Falcon 9 rocket on Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 that had been holding off launch with its Starlink satellite payload since weather forced it to stand down last Sunday.” But with Psyche safely in space, SpaceX “was ready to go and weather stayed green for it to launch that Falcon 9 eight hours and 42 minutes later carrying another 22 Starlink internet satellites into space.”  
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)


Video

SpaceX Starlink 113 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 13 October 2023
(SciNews; YouTube)