While Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting was underway on Thursday, Elon Musk’s other company SpaceX was busy launching South Korea’s first mission to the moon.
On Thursday, August 4 at 7:08 p.m. ET, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) to a ballistic lunar transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, explains the company.
KPLO is now named Danuri and SpaceX successfully deployed the boxy satellite into orbit, seen in the video below. Onboard are various instruments to collect data from the satellite’s expected orbit around the moon in December.
This particular Falcon 9 rocket saw its sixth successful launch and landing. It previously supported the launch of Arabsat-6A, STP-2, COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM2, and two Starlink missions. The first stage landed onto SpaceX’s droneship “Just Read the Instructions” successfully, like clockwork.
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