SpaceFlightNow.com reported the launch as follows. “The second time will be the charm for SpaceX as it was able to launch its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Sunday evening among the clouds. It launched at 8:52 p.m. EST (0152 UTC) on Sunday, Jan. 14, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station following a Saturday night scrub.
The company was launching at a rate of about every four days or so from the Cape towards the end of 2023. However, the launch cadence on the East Coast has slowed somewhat with one of the two Florida-based droneships, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ still on the sidelines after it was damaged during a booster recovery in late December.
The first stage booster supporting Saturday evening’s launch, tail number B1073, made its 12 flight on the Starlink 6-37 mission. Its pedigree includes launching ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander, SpaceX’s 27th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-27) mission and seven Starlink missions.
A little over eight minutes after liftoff, B1073 landed on the droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This was the 57th landing on ASOG and the 264th SpaceX booster landing to date. SpaceX will also endeavor to recover the payload fairings.”
Please use the following spaceX.com link for a replay of the launch and description of the mission.
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