SpaceX Has Landed A Falcon First Stage Rocket Booster 63 Times

On Saturday, October 24 at 11:31 a.m. EDT, 11:31 UTC, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched 60 Starlink satellites to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Falcon 9’s first stage previously supported the GPS III Space Vehicle 03 mission in June 2020 and a Starlink mission in September 2020. Following stage separation, SpaceX landed Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The Starlink satellites deployed approximately 1 hour and 3 minutes after liftoff. This mission also marked the 100th successful flight of a Falcon rocket since Falcon

Now They're Trying To Keep It All From Leaking Away

Two days after touching down on asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission team received on Thursday, Oct. 22, images that confirm the spacecraft has collected more than enough material to meet one of its main mission requirements – acquiring at least 2 ounces (60 grams) of the asteroid’s surface material. The spacecraft captured images of the sample collector head as it moved through several different positions. In reviewing these images, the OSIRIS-REx team noticed both that the head appeared to be full of asteroid particles, and that some of these particles appeared to be escaping slowly from the sample collector, called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) h