SpaceX flew all but five of the record 93 orbital launches from KSC and Canaveral in 2024 with United Launch Alliance responsible for the rest.
The flight was the third on the Space Coast for the year with the other two also by SpaceX, but from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
SpaceX, meanwhile, has its next Cape Canaveral launch lined up for later Friday morning with another Starliink mission targeting a launch window that runs from 10:27 a.m.-2:27 p.m.
SpaceX’s next KSC launch could be as early as Jan. 15 at 1:11 a.m. when a Falcon 9 looks to take up both the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost moon lander on Blue Ghost Mission 1, the third of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions, and the Japanese company ispace’s Hakuto Mission-2 lunar lander for JAXA.
The first-stage booster made its third flight having previously flown on the GOES-U mission for the NOAA as well as another Starlink mission. It made a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.
