SpaceX attempts three launches in 31 hours but auto aborts 30 seconds before liftoff on Intelsat Galaxy 33 & 34

October 6th 2022!

On a beautiful blue sky evening with the sun setting in the west SpaceX was poised to make corporate history with three launches in less than 31 hours from Vandenberg and two launches from Cape Kennedy including a crewed astronaut team of Crew 5 to the ISS but aborted the Intelsat Galaxy 33 & 34 C-Band satellite mission with only 30 seconds from ignition.

First stage booster B-1051-14 will make it’s 14th flight into space if it launches on Friday evening at 7:06 PM EDT with a 69 minute window. The reason for the Falcon 9 auto abort has not been explained by SpaceX as of this writing. SpaceX will attempt to recover this booster by landing it on a drone ship down range in the Atlantic ocean. When this mission launches it will make for 46 launches since the start of the new year well on their way for 52 launches in a calendar year.

Intelsat 33 is a powerful C-Band video & television broadcast services satellite serving the United States and will replace older Intelsat satellites already in use. Intelsat 34 will be a back up satellite to the Intelsat constellation but will occasionally broadcast sports programming and other backup broadcast once in orbit. Both satellites will be in a geostationary orbit and they were built by Northrop Grumman.

Article and photos by Scott Schilke for spacenews.lu & space-news.es