SpaceX Launches Record Tying 31st Flight This Year!

On July 17, 2022 the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The vehicle begun its pitch downrange and continued its flight. Its nine Merlin 1D engines throttled down for the period of maximum dynamic pressure of Max-Q. The vehicle passed through Max-Q and then went supersonic shortly after. The engines throttled back up to 98% thrust, and then begun to slowly throttle the engines down to limit the G force at 3.5Gs. The vehicle successfully shut down its nine merlin engines, the stages separated, and then the Merlin Vacuum engine ignited. During the second stage burn, the entry burn started, and shutdown. The landing burn then started and brought the first stage, B1051, onto the deck of SpaceX's Autonomous Spaceport Droneship, Just Read The Instructions (JRTI) which is positioned off the coast of the carolinas. SECO or second engine cutoff occured just after the landing was accomplished.

Starlink 4-22 Mission Prior to going supersonic and going into the clouds

This mission marked the 166th overall flight of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which is one of the most reliable launch vehicles in the world. The Falcon 9 rocket is the cheapest dollar to kilogram ratio rocket that is currently active. The rocket is manufactured and launched by SpaceX which is located in Hawthorne, California.

The reason that this mission is record tying is because last year, SpaceX achieved 31 flights overall with both their Starship and Falcon 9 rockets. This year, we are only in July and SpaceX has already achieved 31 flights of their Falcon 9 rocket, and plans set the launch schedule to end at 51 launches by the end of this year.

The Falcon 9 first stage is powered by nine Merlin 1D engines. The Merlin engine series run on RP-1 and LOx. RP-1 stands for rocket propellant 1, and is basically just a refined form of kerosene. RP-1 is usually chilled down to around -70 degrees farenheight. LOx stands for liquid oxygen, and this is used as the oxidizer for the fuel (RP-1). Since the oxygen is a liquid, it needs to be stored as a cryogenic propellant. This means that it has to be stored at -298 degrees. However SpaceX chills it down to -340 degrees farenheight for the most efficency.