SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flashes fiery multicolored exhaust across nighttime sky Thursday
Multicolored flames trailing from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket treated Brevard County spectators to a spectacular show Thursday night, as another Starlink mission soared along a southeasterly trajectory.
"Engines full power, and liftoff. Go Falcon, go Starlink," a SpaceX crew member announced during the company webcast as the 230-foot rocket rose off Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
SpaceX crews announced a trio of minor delays prior to Thursday's Starlink 6-55 liftoff, bumping back the launch time from 9:49 p.m. to 10:37 p.m. EDT.
SpaceX did not publicly announce why that occurred. The National Weather Service radar loop from the Melbourne Orlando International Airport station showed no significant cloud cover over the Space Coast, and the Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron had pegged odds of "go for launch" conditions at 85%.
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The mission deployed another 23 broadband satellites into the ever-expanding Starlink constellation in low-Earth orbit.
"Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency internet is now available in Uruguay!" company officials announced in a Thursday afternoon tweet.
The mission marked the 19th flight for the Falcon 9 first-stage booster, SpaceX reported. The much-traveled booster previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, SES 03b mPOWER, PSN SATRIA, Telkomsat Merah Putih 2 and nine Starlink missions.
Following stage separation, the booster touched down atop the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas out on the Atlantic Ocean.
Thursday morning, Space Florida released a report outlining a long-term vision for a $2.1 billion northward expansion near Port Canaveral, featuring a proposed large-scale wharf along Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for space-industry drone ships, marine vessels and watercraft to transport and retrieve rocket boosters, fairings and capsules.
One Falcon 9 launch can generate SpaceX ocean recovery operations for all three of these components. The Space Florida study projected demand across the commercial space industry will increase to 197 annual launch recovery operations by 2028; 571 by 2053; and 1,252 by 2073.
Less than seven hours before the Starlink 6-55 liftoff, SpaceX crews launched a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on the Maxar 1 mission.
The rocket lifted a pair of Maxar Intelligence geospatial satellites into low-Earth orbit, marking SpaceX's 44th mission of 2024 nationwide.
"Our first two WorldView Legion spacecraft deployed their solar arrays and started receiving and sending signals! Now we’ll begin commissioning them for collecting imagery. Thanks @SpaceX for the ride to orbit!" company officials announced in a 5:46 p.m. Thursday tweet.
For the latest news and launch schedule from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX Falcon 9 streaks colorfully across darkened sky Thursday night
