Enlarge / This batch of Starlink missions will launch with a used rocket fairing. (credit: SpaceX)
In launching its next batch of Starlink satellites—the company’s sixth batch of 60 operational spacecraft—SpaceX plans to continue to push the bounds of reuse. With this mission, for the first time, the company plans to fly the same Falcon 9 first stage for the fifth time.
After completing a static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage on Friday, the company is now targeting Sunday at 9:22am ET (13:22 UTC) for the mission from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. The weather is expected to be favorable, with only a 10 percent chance of poor conditions due to too many cumulus clouds.
SpaceX also announced on Friday that it will reuse the rocket’s payload fairing, which previously flew on a Starlink mission in May 2019. This means that the only part of the Falcon 9 rocket not being recycled is its second stage, which is powered by a single Merlin vacuum engine and pushes the satellites from the edge of space to their deployment into an orbit more than 200km above the ground.
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Source: Ars Technica – For this launch, everything on the rocket is recycled but the second stage