SpaceX carried out a milestone first polar orbit launch of a satellite from its East Coast launch facility at Cape Canaveral on Sunday.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/AIwrMzB3D1
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 30, 2020
The Falcon 9 mission carried three payloads, including a SAOCOM-1B synthetic aperture radar satellite which was flown on behalf of the Argentine space agency, and two small satellites for clients Tyvack and PlanetiQ.
The launch took place at 7:18 PM EDT from Florida, and used a first-stage booster that SpaceX previously flew in on two separate commercial resupply missions on behalf of the NASA for the international Space Station. SpaceX recovered the booster again with a controlled landing back at their landing site at Cape Canaveral,Florida.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed at Landing Zone 1 pic.twitter.com/0y5FkVqPk8
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 30, 2020
A Starlink launch was planned from the same site but was cancelled due to weather conditions and is to be rescheduled.