Aerospace company SpaceX successfully launched two more rockets Thursday evening, the last two missions for 2023.
SpaceX has had several launches this year, both of its own accord and in partnership with NASA, to launch new hardware into orbit as well as new spacecraft to distant asteroids. NASA announced that its Psych spacecraft had launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on October 13, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
SpaceX rounded out the year with two more successful launches on December 28: a Falcon 9 rocket and a Falcon Heavy rocket.
The company’s Falcon Heavy rocket launched first from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at about 8:07 p.m. EST on December 28, sending the USSF-52 mission to orbit. This marked the fifth launch and landing of the Falcon Heavy side boosters, which had also been used in the Psyche mission, among others.
SpaceX’s second launch occurred only hours later at 11:01 p.m., sending 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This launch represented the company’s 96th and last launch of the year, according to a social media post.
This was the 12th flight using the company’s first-stage booster, which had been used for eight previous Starlink launch missions as well as other rockets, such as the Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18, SES-19, and CRS-24.
However, not all SpaceX launches this year have gone perfectly this year. SpaceX conducted a test launch of its Starship spacecraft on November 18 that ended abruptly when some portions of the craft exploded shortly after launch.
SpaceX plans to launch another Starlink mission on January 2 from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The four-hour launch window opens at 6:13 p.m. PT.
