A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 on Monday, Jan. 13, 2025. (SpaceX/TNS)
(Tribune News Service) — SpaceX knocked out another launch on Monday sending up the fifth Space Coast mission of the year.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 satellites took off through overcast skies at 11:47 a.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40.
The first-stage booster for the mission made its 15th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.
SpaceX has flown all launches so far this year from the Space Coast with four from Cape Canaveral and one from Kennedy Space Center.
Blue Origin had been lined up to be No. 5 earlier Monday on the debut launch of its New Glenn rocket at Canaveral’s Launch Pad 36, but the company scrubbed the attempt “to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue,” and has not announced a new target launch attempt.
SpaceX has its second KSC launch of the year lined up for early Wednesday with a target 1:11 a.m. liftoff of a Falcon 9 carrying a pair commercial lunar landers, one for Firefly Aerospace and one for Japanese company ispace.
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