Nov. 11 (UPI) — SpaceX successful launched a South Korean communication satellite from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday afternoon.
The payload saw liftoff shortly after 12:20 EST.
The mission to send the KT SAT Corp.’s Koreasat-6A into space had been scheduled for as early as 12:07 p.m.
The second stage went skyward and deployed the KoreaSat-6A telecom satellite into orbit roughly 35 minutes after it launched.
Though the launch was to put a satellite into orbit, most of the attention was on the first-stage booster, which made its 23rd launch and recovery, tying a record with two other SpaceX boosters.
The booster landed at Cape Canaveral Space Force Staiion’s landing zone 1.
The cost-saving process of reusing first-stage boosters, along with the time it takes to get them ready for the next space flight, has turned SpaceX into the leading commercial space company in the world.
The first stage returned to Earth autonomously and landed nearly 10 minutes after takeoff. Two other SpaceX first-stage boosters have also flown 23 flights, but both are no longer in service.
One of those workhouse first stage rockets missed sticking the landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” on Aug. 28 after helping lift Starlink satellites into space.
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