Let's get Sirius

12:30 PM Est, From Canaveral Space Force Station atop a Falcon 9 rocket

Photo by: Theresa Cross- SFI

December 13th, 2020

In one of the final launches of the year for SpaceX and the second ever launch from the newly named Canaveral Space Force Station the company has put up a satellite for the Sirius XM broadcasting station. Run out of Manhattan, New York City the company Sirius is a satellite and online radio station provider with close to twenty million viewers. Currently the company has five satellites in orbit. Two for Sirius XM, two for Sirius and one spare. In 2016 the company placed an order for two new satellites to be built, each capable of doing both XM and regular services for the broadcasting provider.

Eight minutes after lift off booster 1051, a SpaceX workhorse has become the second first stage booster to ever launch and land seven successful times. It's maiden voyage was made on the DM-1 launch where the Crew Dragon capsule performed it's first un crewed test flight to the International Space Station. From there it went West to California's Vandenburg Air Force Base for a RADARSAT mission before coming back to Florida to launch four separate Starlink missions. If you're keeping track of booster flights then you'd know that booster 1051 has become the first Falcon 9 rocket booster to launch from all three of SpaceX's launch sites inside the United States, LC-39A, LC-4, and SLC-40.