Yesterday evening at 7:05 p.m. ET, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launched the Intelsat G-33/G-34 mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This was SpaceX’s third launch of the week.
This was the first time a commercial payload was sent up on a Falcon 9 booster that was being reused for the 14th time. Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed for the 14th time on the drone ship, A Shortfall of Gravitas, stationed about 600 km off the coast of Florida.
This Falcon 9 booster previously supported the launch of GPS III-3, Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, and 10 Starlink missions. It was the 146th recovery of an orbital class rocket by SpaceX.
Captured Falcon 9 with Intelsat Galaxy 33 & 34 transiting the full Hunter’s Moon tonight from the waters of Florida’s Indian River🌕🚀 pic.twitter.com/D5FeKMS26N
— 📸Trevor Mahlmann (@TrevorMahlmann) October 8, 2022
While landing onto the drone ship, we saw a camera shot showing the plume of the second stage being lit up by the sun looking like a “jellyfish” as it was described, and it was a spectacular sight.
We also saw a shot from the ground, showing both the first and second stages of the Falcon 9 separated, while we also saw both fairing halves deploy and fall back to Earth.
I’m pulling back the real time stuff now and sending it to the media team.
— ✨ Photon Empress (@PhotonEmpress) October 8, 2022
SpaceX confirmed later both Intelsat satellites were successfully deployed, Galaxy 33 and 34.
Check out the full Intelsat G-33/G-34 mission replay below:
