SpaceX on Friday successfully completed two rocket launches within four hours, an incredible cadence that no other company has done before.
On Friday, March 17 at 12:26 p.m. PT, the company’s Falcon 9 rocket launched 52 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. This was the eighth launch and landing for this particular booster.
Next, just over four hours later at 7:38 p.m. ET, another Falcon 9 rocket launched SES-18 and SES-19 to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the booster’s sixth launch and landing.
“Congrats to the SpaceX team on launching two Falcon 9 missions ~4 hours apart today, completing our 18th and 19th missions of 2023 so far,” said SpaceX after the launches.
Congrats to @SpaceX team for launching 2 rockets within 4 hours! pic.twitter.com/kT5T01lxjt
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 18, 2023
CEO Elon Musk added, “Congrats to @SpaceX team for launching 2 rockets within 4 hours!”.
Recently, Musk teased the first Starship orbital launch may possibly take place on April 20.
