Space Flight Now recapped this complex mission as follows. “A reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 booster completed its record-breaking 14th flight to space after blastoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 9:20 p.m. EDT Saturday (0120 GMT Sunday). The mission was billed as one of SpaceX’s complex launches to date, deploying 34 Starlink internet spacecraft and a testbed satellite for AST SpaceMobile’s space-based cellular broadband network into two different orbits.
The rocket’s upper stage fired its engines five times Saturday night — four burns to deploy AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 satellite and the 34 Starlink payloads into two distinct orbits, then a final maneuver to drive the upper stage back into Earth’s atmosphere for a destructive re-entry.
The five engine firings by the Falcon 9’s upper stage were the most ever performed on a SpaceX mission, besting the previous record by one. And the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket flying Saturday night became SpaceX’s fleet leader.”
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