For those who lived in or visited the area around the Kennedy Space Center, referred to as Florida’s Space Coast, during the Space Shuttle era, they will remember that opportunities to see a rocket launch came only a few times a year.

With the entrance of private space launch companies like SpaceX in recent years, that situation has changed dramatically. This week, in fact, will likely see a record for rocket launches from the Space Center.

In the span of just a few days, there will in be 3 rocket launches – beginning on Thursday.

Launch 1

In a matter of hours, the first of these launches will be a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket at 2:04 AM ET on August 29, 2020.

The Delta IV Heavy, the largest of its kind, will lift off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch complex 37 – just south of the Kennedy Space Center.

Carried aloft by three large booster rockets, the launch of the Delta IV Heavy should be easy to see from Eastern and Central Florida against the dark night sky.

The rocket will carry a classified spy satellite into orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.

Launch 2

In what will be a record setting week, the second rocket launch in just three days is scheduled to take place around 10:08 am on Sunday morning, August 30.

Like the Falcon 9 from a couple weeks ago, Saturday’s Falcon 9 will carry another of the company’s 60 Starlink satellites into orbit. This is part of SpaceX’s mission to build a constellation of satellites which will provide affordable broadband internet to even the most remote parts of the planet.

But if you miss either one of these launches, don’t worry – there’s yet another one coming up.

Launch 3

On Sunday, August 30th, SpaceX will be launching two of its Falcon 9 Rockets on the same day! The second of these will be Sunday evening, at 7:19 pm eastern time.

On this mission, Falcon 9 will lift-off carrying a SAOCOM 1B Earth observation satellite for Argentina. This launch for Elon Musk’s company is the third SpaceX Falcon 9 to fly in just the last few weeks.

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This morning’s launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral on Florida’s Space Coast went off without a hitch as clear skies and light winds prevailed.

As with every SpaceX launch, the event was streamed live via multiple vantage points thanks to cameras on the ground, the recovery ships at sea, and several mounted on various components of the rocket and stages.

Watch a video replay of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch below:

Today’s launch was the 6^th time that this Falcon 9 booster has carried a payload aloft and then safely landed on the drone recovery ship in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s last flight before today was in June 2020.

This unique ability to reuse both the rockets and the fairings repeatedly is allowing SpaceX to ‘crush the competition’ in terms of the cost of putting payloads into orbit.

Many liken it to the difference we would pay for an airline ticket if the airplane had to be thrown away after each flight.

In the video replay of today’s launch, you can see the launch and separation of the rocket from the second stage carrying the Starlink satellites (about 18 minutes after liftoff). Cameras on the rocket and the drone ship also provide great views of the re-entry and landing of Falcon 9.

Today’s launch put 58 more SpaceX’s Starlink satellites into orbit, and also carried 3 SkySat satellites for a customer.

About 12 minutes after lift-off, a rear facing camera provides a great view of deployment of the 3 SkySats, and then Starlinks about another 34 minutes later.

The next scheduled launch for SpaceX is later this month on the evening August 27 at 7:19pm Eastern.

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