REPLAY: SpaceX liftoff with Qatari satellite marks first daytime spectacle in months

Thursday's Falcon 9 booster landing is 31st for SpaceX

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – After six months of launching into darkness, SpaceX had its first launch during the light of day Thursday at Kennedy Space Center, sending a communication satellite up for Qatar.

The Falcon 9 engines ignited at 3:46 p.m., lifting off with the Es’hail 2 communications satellite from  historic pad 39A.

The satellite will provide television and broadband internet to Qatar, parts of the wider Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Amateur radio users from Brazil to Thailand will also benefit from the satellite. Two radio antennas were on board the spacecraft, marking the first time an amateur radio transponder was sent into geostationary orbit.

The timing and weather was a treat for people on the Space Coast viewing the liftoff. Since May, all launches by SpaceX and United Launch Alliance have taken place late at night or predawn hours.

In what is now routine for the company led by CEO Elon Musk, the Falcon 9 first-stage booster returned to Earth about eight minutes after launch, landing on a drone ship called Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean. The bull's-eye landing marked the 31st for SpaceX and the second landing for the booster. It will be refurbished and launched for a third time as part of SpaceX's plan to cut down launch costs.

SpaceX has also attempted to catch the fairings that make up the rocket's nose cone; however it hasn't been successful yet. The next attempt to catch the fairings drop from the sky will happen after a Space Coast launch, reports News 6 partner Florida Today. If all goes well, the fairings will be caught in a giant net resembling a catcher's mitt on a boat called Mr. Steven.

The Es’hail 2 satellite was successfully deployed into orbit above Earth's equator 32 minutes after launch.

There are two more East Coast launches on SpaceX's 2018 manifest: a resupply mission to the International Space Station and the launch of an Air Force GPS satellite. Both are slated for no earlier than December.


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