SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 from Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, USA at 0120 GMT on 11 September. The vehicle was carrying 34 SpaceX Starlink communications satellites (Group 4-2) to orbit. It also carried BlueWalker 3, a spacecraft designed to test communication technologies including a large 64.4 square metre phased array antenna for a later proposed constellation for AST SpaceMobile. The B1058 First stage successfully landed on the drone barge “A Shortfall of Gravitas” which was stationed downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX paid tribute to this reusable landing stage on Twitter, pointing out that it has been launched and landed 14 times.
SpaceX tweets its own TV images showing successful landing of the B1058 reusable stage on its 14 flight as its upper stage engine fires to deliver the satellites. Courtesy: Twitter/SpaceX.
Jonathan Freemen contributed to this report.
