SpaceX Falcon 9 Delivers 5-Ton Communications Satellite to Orbit

A Falcon 9 lit up the Florida skies Monday night in what is now a very familiar scene.

The rocket successfully deployed Hispasat’s Amazonas Nexus communications satellite into a trajectory that will take it to a geostationary orbit, from where it will expand the Spanish company’s coverage across the Americas, the Atlantic Ocean, and Greenland.

The rocket took flight at 8:32 p.m. ET from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Some eight minutes later, the main stage booster, B1073-6, performed a successful vertical landing atop the Just Read the Instructions droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

This was the booster’s sixth flight, having previously delivered the SES-22 satellite, ispace’s HAKUTO-R lunar lander, and three batches of the company’s Starlink satellites.