Meanwhile back at the range

SpaceX resumed doing what they do - launching while the rest of the world watches. As is often the case, everything they do sets a record of some sort.  

The launch was the 133rd Falcon 9 mission of the year, "just" sending another 28 Starlink satellites into orbit, this time from Vandenberg Space Force Base in southern California. Last year's record was 132. With around 10 weeks left in the year and a pace that has been just over 3/week, that points to the possibility of 162 F9 launches for this year.  It was at 7:16 AM PDT or 10:16 AM of Oct. 22nd here on the east coast.  Although not even distantly related, Ruger Firearms long ago grabbed 10/22 to be called Ruger Day and I feel obligated to pass that on. 

This was called Starlink group 11-5, pictured here:

This morning's launch from Vandenberg Image Credit: SpaceX

The last record-breaking launch for SpaceX was also from Vandenberg SFB, on Sunday 10/19. That launch of 28 Starlink satellites included the 10,000th Starlink satellite, as it's own record. 

The next launch should be tomorrow (Thursday, 10/23) night from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) here on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Launch time is currently set for 9:30PM EDT. What's unusual about this launch is that they will not attempt to land the booster, something that happens very rarely - this one will be only the second one of this year. This is booster B1076-22, with that last two digits telling the number of this mission. That's right, this will be the 22nd flight of B1076. When a booster is thrown away it's because the requirements of the launch (weight and trajectory) are more than a Falcon 9 can handle and return to drone ship to land. 

Tomorrow night's payload is a Communications Satellite (ComSAT) for Spain called SPAINSAT New Generation II

SPAINSAT NG is Hisdesat's largest project since its foundation. Its technological complexity and strategic relevance will position the company as an international benchmark in satellite communications. The new Spainsat NG generation will multiply by 16 times the capacity in X and Ka military band with respect to the current devices and will add a new payload in UHF band. In addition, it will operate with active X-band antennas in receive and transmit. Pioneers in the European aerospace sector, each of them will be assigned 16 different areas of operation to perform their coverage services with electronic configuration.

The SpainSat NG I & II will replace the current SpainSat and XTAR-EUR and will incorporate the latest technological advances in communications to reinforce their capabilities, security levels and resilience. They will have a useful life of about 15 years, which means that they will be fully operational until the 2040 threshold.