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SpaceX kicked off another busy week following the third test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday and three Falcon 9 missions. The company launched Monday with 22 Starlink satellites from its pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on the Starlink 7-16 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at 7:28 pm PT (1028 pm ET, 0228 UTC).
The Falcon 9 first stage booster used on this flight, tail number B1075 in the SpaceX fleet, was launched for the tenth time. It previously launched two missions for the US Space Development Agency, as well as seven other Starlink missions.
Just over eight minutes after liftoff, B1075 landed on the SpaceX spacecraft, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ It was OCISLY’s 86th landing and SpaceX’s 285th booster landing to date.
While this mission is underway, SpaceX and NASA are also preparing to launch a Cargo Dragon from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This will be the 30th flight under SpaceX’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA to transport cargo and science to the orbiting outpost.
This mission is also distinguished because it will be the first time a second-generation Dragon spacecraft will launch to the International Space Station from SLC-40. The first Dragon capsule was launched aboard the inaugural Falcon 9 rocket from the pad in 2010, but operations shifted to pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center after the first-generation Dragon was retired following the CRS-20 mission in March 2020.
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