{"id":135071,"date":"2022-02-01T19:22:41","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T03:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/spacex-debuts-converted-falcon-heavy-booster-on-spectacular-italian-satellite-launch"},"modified":"2022-02-01T19:22:41","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T03:22:41","slug":"spacex-debuts-converted-falcon-heavy-booster-on-spectacular-italian-satellite-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/spacex-debuts-converted-falcon-heavy-booster-on-spectacular-italian-satellite-launch","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX debuts converted Falcon Heavy booster on spectacular Italian satellite launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spacex-debuts-converted-falcon-heavy-booster-on-spectacular-italian-satellite-launch2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the first time, SpaceX has converted a flight-proven Falcon Heavy side core into a Falcon 9 booster and successfully launched the reborn rocket, carrying an Italian Earth observation satellite to orbit with one of the most visually spectacular Falcon launches in recent memory.<\/p>\n<p>After a tortured campaign of four scrubbed or aborted launch attempts between January 27th and 30th, Falcon 9 finally lifted off from SpaceX\u2019s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) LC-40 pad at 6:11 pm EST (23:11 UTC) on Monday, January 31st. The converted Falcon Heavy booster performed perfectly on its first solo mission, successfully carrying a Falcon upper stage and Italy\u2019s CSG-2 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Earth observation satellite to an altitude of 70 km (~45 mi) and a velocity of ~1.7 km\/s (Mach 5) \u2013 effectively the edge of space.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to near-perfect weather and the timing of the launch about 15 minutes after sunset, Falcon Heavy side core B1052\u2019s first mission as a Falcon 9 booster wound up producing some of the best views of a SpaceX launch in the company\u2019s history. As the rocket ascended, the sky continued to darken for local ground observers. It wasn\u2019t long before Falcon 9\u2019s shiny, white airframe ascended into direct sunlight, which created some extraordinary contrast against the darkening sky for tracking cameras near the launch site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time, SpaceX has converted a flight-proven Falcon Heavy side core into a Falcon 9 booster and successfully launched the reborn rocket, carrying an Italian Earth observation satellite to orbit with one of the most visually spectacular Falcon launches in recent memory. After a tortured campaign of four scrubbed or aborted launch attempts [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135071","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=135071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}