{"id":131167,"date":"2021-11-24T14:22:21","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T22:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-aces-first-interplanetary-launch"},"modified":"2021-11-24T14:22:21","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T22:22:21","slug":"spacex-falcon-9-rocket-aces-first-interplanetary-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/11\/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-aces-first-interplanetary-launch","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aces first interplanetary launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-aces-first-interplanetary-launch2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX has aced its first operational interplanetary launch, sending NASA\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft on its way out of the Earth-Moon system as part of the world\u2019s first planetary defense mission.<\/p>\n<p>Right on time, SpaceX\u2019s flight-proven Falcon 9 booster lifted off at 10:21 pm PST with an expendable upper stage, new fairing, and the ~630 kg (~1400 lb) DART spacecraft in tow, reaching a nominal low Earth parking orbit about eight minutes later. A few seconds after the second stage\u2019s first engine cutoff (SECO-1), booster B1063 safely landed on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), wrapping up its third orbital-class launch and spaceflight in twelve months.<\/p>\n<p>Around 28 minutes after liftoff, Falcon 9\u2019s orbital second stage fired up for the second and final time. In just 53 seconds, Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage accelerated from a stable velocity (relative to Earth\u2019s surface) of 7.5 kilometers per second (4.7 mi\/s) to almost 11.1 km\/s (6.9 mi\/s), sending DART (and itself) from low Earth orbit (LEO) to an Earth escape trajectory that will ultimately leave them in orbit around the sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX has aced its first operational interplanetary launch, sending NASA\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft on its way out of the Earth-Moon system as part of the world\u2019s first planetary defense mission. Right on time, SpaceX\u2019s flight-proven Falcon 9 booster lifted off at 10:21 pm PST with an expendable upper stage, new fairing, and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1488,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drones","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}