SpaceX on Wednesday launched 29 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in central Florida. Screenshot from SpaceX<\/p>\n
Nov. 5 (UPI) — The first of two planned launches lifted off Wednesdsay night from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.<\/p>\n
If both launches go off in the doubleheader, the yearly record of 93<\/a> from Florida will be tied. The other Space Coast site is the Kennedy Space Center. The skies in the area were clear with the full moon in the west, Florida Today reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 with 29 Starlink satellites at 8:31 p.m. EST with a window originally 6:09 p.m. from Launch Complex 40. About eight minutes later, the fifth flight for the first-stage booster, including a Crew-11 flight and one Starlink mission, landed on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions on the Atlantic Ocean.\n<\/p>\n Less than two hours later, a rival company — United Launch Alliance — planned to launch no earlier than 10:24 p.m. an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Complex 41 for the second in Viasat’s satellite fleet. The rocket, which weighs 6 tons, includes five boosters<\/a>, will launch the payload in an elliptical geosynchronous transfer orbit.<\/p>\n “The launch team has received the ‘go’ to begin filling the Centaur upper stage with the super-cold liquid hydrogen fuel following chilldown of the system. The Centaur holds about 12,300 gallons of the cryogenic propellant,” ULA posted about 1 1\/2 hours before the scheduled launch.<\/p>\n ULA is a joint venture with Lockheed Martin Space and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The company’s liftoff will be available on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n By Sunday, the two space complexes in central Florida are hoping to have launched five missions in seven days by three companies.<\/p>\n The week began early Sunday with SpaceX<\/a>‘s launch of 18 ride-share satellites. At 1:09 a.m., Falcon 9 was launched with one satellite for South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development and 17 other companies into low-Earth orbit. The launch was from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 40. The other customers were Exolaunch, Fergani, Tomorrow Companies, Starcloud and Vast.\n<\/p>\n The next SpaceX mission is scheduled for Saturday, not earlier than 3:30 a.m., for 29 Starlink satellites from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.<\/p>\n