Those who follow Elon Musk on Twitter have gotten used to the flurry of announcements and musings that often arrive in the wee hours of the night. The SpaceX founder and CEO once again rocked the Twittersphere Sunday when he revealed what could be a first for his space company: a launch doubleheader.
If everything works out, it seems SpaceX plans to launch two Falcon 9 rockets from its Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg launch sites this weekend. Musk included a link to a tweet from SpaceX's Twitter, which indicated June 25 as the target date for the "weekend doubleheader."
If schedule holds there will be two Falcon 9 launches within 48 hours (Cape & Vandenberg) this weekend https://t.co/GbleRPm6iZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2017
The payload for Sunday's launch will be from telecommunications company Iridium, for which SpaceX previously launched 10 low-Earth orbit satellites in January. Friday will be the rescheduled launch of a Bulgarian satellite that was originally supposed to launch today (Monday), but that was delayed so that SpaceX could replace a valve on the rocket booster.
If the weekend doubleheader goes as planned, SpaceX will have more proof that it's capable of handling a significant volume of launches. 2017 isn't even half over, and it's already proving to be a great year for SpaceX.
Share This Article