Elon Musk's space company, SpaceX, reached another major milestone over the weekend after another successful launch of its Falcon 9 rocket. About the achievement that Musk can mark V is told with the help of Perplexity.
The rocket, which took off at 20:19 p.m. on Saturday night (Israel time) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carried a payload of 25 satellites, including a satellite called EIRSAT-1 built by students from Ireland for educational research; South Korean spy satellite EO/IR 425, the first of five SpaceX hired to launch into space by 2025; and commercial satellites from Space BD, SITAEL, D-Orbit, York Space Systems and PlanetIQ.
But the payload wasn't the star of the launch—it was the rocket. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the rockets landed safely at spaceport landing pad 4 about 8 minutes after takeoff, in what was the 250th time SpaceX had landed a reusable launch rocket. Recall that in the middle of the previous decade, when the company began testing to land missiles for recycling, the very idea was considered ridiculous and impossible. Now it has been successfully performed a quarter of a century (or five tributaries – however you prefer) times.
Beyond that, this launch was SpaceX's 88th this year – which means there is still a chance that it will reach the threshold set by Musk of 100 launches a year this year. The company has recently launched almost once every other day – and with 27 days remaining, 12 more launches are certainly an achievable goal. For the Falcon 9 rockets, this was the 84th launch, with the other four based on larger rockets – two were of the larger Falcon Heavy, and the two most talked about were the test launches of Spaceship, the largest rocket in human history.
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