(L)A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket stands at pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center several hours before a scheduled launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and (R) A Falcon 9 rocket stands at Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 pad.
Getty (L) | SpaceX (R)
SpaceX came remarkably close to breaking a record that has remained unbroken for over half a century. The company had planned back-to-back launches from Florida’s Space Coast.
The target launch time for the first launch was 10:20 p.m. ET. This launch would have been carried out by the Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Force’s Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), with the purpose of deploying Starlink satellites.
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A Falcon Heavy rocket was also scheduled to lift off shortly after the Falcon 9 launch. This rocket was supposed to deliver the Jupiter 3 satellite for EchoStar into orbit. However, the Falcon Heavy launch was postponed and rescheduled for Friday evening at Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
The rockets of NASA’s Gemini 11 mission lift off on September 12, 1966. (Left: An Atlas-Agena D rocket launches from SLC-14. Right: A Titan II rocket launches from SLC-19.)
Courtesy: NASA
Space Launch Delta 45 is the unit of the U.S. Space Force responsible for managing the Eastern Range, which is a designated U.S. rocket range for launches from Kennedy or Cape Canaveral.
In social media posts on Thursday, SLD 45 mentioned that the pair of SpaceX launches could potentially break a record set by the Gemini 11 mission in September 1966. The Gemini 11 mission launched using an Atlas-Agena D rocket and a modified Titan II rocket with a time gap of 1 hour, 37 minutes, and 25 seconds.
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“This could be the shortest time between Earth-to-orbit launches from the Eastern Range, according to our written records,” stated SLD 45. “Join us as we attempt to redefine the record books on the Space Coast!”
Rocket launches require regulatory clearance within specific time windows, partly due to the increasing congestion of airspace needed for each mission.
If the launches had taken place, they would have marked SpaceX’s 51st and 52nd launches of the year.
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