Elon Musk’s SpaceX has started the year with a bang after launching its first rocket in 2023, launching 114 satellites into low orbit.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 9:56 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida with a payload of greenhouse gas emissions measurement satellites, multiple agricultural monitoring devices and 10 new Starlink internet satellites.
This mission, known as Transporter-6, follows SpaceX’s record year of 61 launches in 2022, but the company is targeting up to 100 launches this year.
It also comes as SpaceX announced it will raise $750 million in a new round of funding that values the rocket and satellite company at $137 billion from investors.
SpaceX launched its first rocket in 2023. The Falcon 9 launched at 9:56 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida
It was clear skies over the Falcon 9 as it rocketed into space on Tuesday.
This was the second time SpaceX has attempted to launch one of its Falcon 9 first stages 15 times, as that rocket had previously launched the GPS III-3 satellite for the US Space Force, three other commercial missions and 10 batches of Starlink satellites .
The 114 satellites, owned by operators in 23 counties, include 36 small SuperDove CubeSats for Planet’s commercial earth-imaging constellation.
The mission also launched a £400 satellite for EOS Data Analytics, a Silicon Valley startup founded by Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian entrepreneur and investor, on board the rocket.
Designed to capture images of the Earth’s surface, with a focus on agriculture, this vehicle is the largest device launched on Tuesday.
The US Space Force used this mission to deploy a prototype cloud imaging device, and military satellites from Norway and the Netherlands also hitched a ride.
Approximately eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the 230-foot-tall first stage booster returned to Earth, where it landed at Cape Canaveral’s landing zone 1, ending the mission with a crashing sonic boom.
And the latest batch of Starlink satellites brings the massive constellation to more than 3,300 in low Earth orbit.
This comes as SpaceX announced last month that it had over a million active subscribers.
The mission launches what SpaceX hopes will be another record year for launches.
This mission, known as Transporter-6, follows SpaceX’s record year of 61 launches in 2022, but the company is targeting up to 100 launches this year
The mission launched 114 satellites owned by operators in 23 countries into low Earth orbit
The company has several crew launches on the books for NASA, Axiom Space and Polaris Dawn, which could see the first civilian spacewalk.
SpaceX plans to launch five Falcon Heavy missions and the much-anticipated Starship launch at the company’s starbase in Texas.
Starship’s launch, scheduled for the first half of 2023, has been plagued by a series of delays.
Musk had said in September that his $216 million ultra-superheavy rocket could finally launch into space the following month, though that didn’t materialize and has now been pushed back to 2023.
Approximately eight and a half minutes after liftoff, the 230-foot-tall first stage booster returned to Earth, where it landed at Cape Canaveral’s landing zone 1, ending the mission with a crashing sonic boom
SpaceX is hoping to beat last year’s launch record, and it could include the first orbital launch of its Starship rocket
SpaceX originally planned to launch Starship into orbit in January 2022, but was forced to postpone it after an environmental impact assessment of the Boca Chica launch site in Texas.
The last time the vehicle left the ground was when a Starship prototype, designated SN15, soared high within Earth’s atmosphere and landed without exploding on May 5, 2021.
Since then, SpaceX has been preparing for Starship’s first in-orbit demonstration flight, which will see the vehicle take off on a Super Heavy Booster for the first time.
Starship’s first orbital flight will be powered by Raptor 2 engines, which Musk says are “much more powerful and reliable” than previous models, delivering 253 tons of thrust at sea level.
Starship and the Super Heavy rocket are collectively referred to as the Starship and, according to SpaceX, “represent a fully reusable transport system intended to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, to the Moon, to Mars and beyond.”
“Starship will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, with the ability to launch over 110 tons into Earth orbit,” she added.
To date, the Starship missile series has seen nine test flights – some resulting in successful short-range jumps, while others resulted in explosions or crash landings.