On Thursday (April 21), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set a new record by taking off and landing for the 12th time.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 1:51 p.m. EDT (1751 GMT) on Thursday, sending 53 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites into orbit.
It was the Falcon 9 first stage’s 12th flight, tying a SpaceX record achieved on a previous Starlink launch just last month. And this isn’t likely to be the booster’s final voyage; it landed safely on the SpaceX droneship Just Read The Instructions, which was deployed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida, around 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
Meanwhile, the Falcon 9’s second stage continued to take the Starlink spacecraft into orbit. Just over an hour and 20 minutes after liftoff, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk reported via Twitter that the 53 satellites were deployed into their parking orbit as anticipated.
After the successful launch, Elon Musk seems to be happy and shared the image of the spaceship on Twitter.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022
Now, Musk is planning a launch to Mars. Elon Musk repeatedly warned in an interview that life on Mars would be dangerous and not for the faint of heart. Musk has long advocated for the colonization of Mars, and as CEO of SpaceX, he has been leading efforts to land humans on the Red Planet within the next decade. Musk stated as much in a December 2021 interview, claiming that humanity will most likely land on Mars in five to 10 years, even in the worst-case scenario.
SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, aspires to not only transport humans to Mars in the next years but also to create a city on the Red Planet. For that purpose, the firm created the Starship, which it promises will one day be capable of transporting more than 100 people and 150 tons of cargo to Mars in a single journey. Mars takes between 128 and 300 days to arrive, and many unmanned missions have already visited the planet in recent years.
