KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX is all for human spaceflight, but also isn’t slowing down with its own plans as it launched its Starlink satellites with a mission Monday afternoon ahead of the planned launch later Monday night of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket with a pair of NASA astronauts on board Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
A Falcon 9 launched at 2:14 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 with what SpaceX said was another 23 Starlink satellites for its growing constellation.
Engines full power and liftoff! Go Falcon 9, go Starlink! pic.twitter.com/F3o8PhcOJP
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 6, 2024
The first-stage booster for the flight made its 15th trip to space with a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic Ocean on SpaceX’s droneship Just Read the Instructions.
It marked the 34th launch of the year from the Space Coast with all but two coming from SpaceX.
ULA scrubs attempt of 1st Boeing Starliner mission with humans
ULA has flown the other two, and its third that was targeting a Monday night liftoff at 10:34 p.m. from nearby Space Launch Complex 41 on the Crew Flight Test mission carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams in Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner on a trip up the International Space Station. That flight attempt was scrubbed, though, about two hours before launch with a new launch date now no earlier than Friday.
It would have been the first human spaceflight from the Cape’s launch pads since Apollo 7 in 1968, as all subsequent flights of Apollo as well as space shuttle and SpaceX Crew Dragon flights have been from nearby Kennedy Space Center.
It’s also set to be the 100th flight of an Atlas V rocket. Earlier iterations of Atlas rockets were used to launch Mercury missions in the early 1960s including the Friendship 7 spacecraft carrying John Glenn in 1962, the first American to orbit the Earth.
NASA normally has limits on how close rockets can launch before one of their missions from the Space Coast, but it only applies if their rocket is using the same booster as the other mission. Since this is on an Atlas V, SpaceX was free to proceed with operations.
For his part, SpaceX founder Elon Musk wished Starliner good luck on tonight’s launch replying “Godspeed” to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson’s post on X about the launch, although he did stump for his company’s prowess as well.
SpaceX and Boeing were awarded NASA contracts for the Commercial Crew Program in 2014, but Boeing received $4.2 billion compared to SpaceX’s $2.6 billion at the time, and SpaceX managed to beat Starliner by a little more than four years in getting to the same point, the crewed test flight to the space station.
“Too many non-technical managers at Boeing,” Musk posted.
Meanwhile, SpaceX aims for its next Space Coast launch in a couple of days.
Delayed from an original Tuesday target launch date, a Falcon 9 now has an opening for launch from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A also a Starlink mission during a four-hour window from 10:42 a.m.-2:42 p.m. with backup on Thursday from 10:16 a.m.-2:16 p.m.
