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SpaceX launches Falcon 9 at sunrise with 23 Starlink satellites – Spaceflight Now

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off from Kennedy Space Center at sunrise Monday carrying 23 Starlink satellites in to orbit. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink satellites at sunrise Monday, capping a busy long-weekend for the launch company that saw three launches and two scrubbed countdowns over four days.

The Falcon 9, making its 17th flight, lifted off from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 6:37 a.m. EDT (1037 UTC), 13 minutes before sunrise on Florida’s Space Coast. The successful liftoff came after two days of delay for the Starlink 10-7 mission.

The Falcon 9 climbs through the Florida dawn sky on the Starlink 10-7 mission. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now.

Originally scheduled for launch on Saturday, the first launch attempt was abandoned when the rocket was not rolled to the pad in time to make its four-hour launch window. Then on Sunday, with less than a minute to go from liftoff, an abort was called just seconds after the mission’s launch director gave their final “go for launch.” SpaceX said in a social media post the countdown had “paused” and did not give a reason for the abort.

The Falcon 9 flies into sunlight creating the so-called jelly fish effect with the rocket’s plume. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now.

Monday’s liftoff was the third for SpaceX in less than 46 hours. Another Starlink mission, designated Starlink 8-3, launched Saturday morning from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after a one-day delay caused by bad weather in the booster recovery zone. And Sunday evening, Space Norway’s Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM) lifted off atop a Falcon 9 from SpaceX’s West Coast launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

SpaceX confirmed a successful separation of the 23 Starlink satellite just over an hour after launch. The mission brings the total number of Starlink satellites launched to 6,895.

The Falcon 9 first stage booster for the Starlink 10-7 mission, tail number B1073, previously launched the ispace Hakuto-R lunar lander, the Bandwagon-1 rideshare flight and 11 Starlink missions. It successfully landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ about eight and a half minutes after launch. It was the 79th booster landing on this particular droneship and the 337th booster landing to date.