Catch the Falcon 9 liftoff, landing, and deployment from SpaceX NG-20 mission

SpaceX on Tuesday launched Northrop Grumman’s 20th Commercial Resupply Services mission (NG-20) to low-earth orbit to the International Space Station (ISS).

The launch took place from Space Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The liftoff happened in broad daylight in clear with 95% favorable weather at 12:07 p.m. ET on January 30, 2024.

The rocket liftoffed on time and fired full-power engines on the ascent to achieve Max Q.

The main engine cutoff was called at 2:16 minutes of the mission. This milestone was followed by stage separation and 2nd stage engine ignition in the following 5-10 seconds.

At 3 minutes of the mission, the director called for the fairing separation. The fairing contained Cygnus spacecraft with 4 tons of payload.

The first stage landed back on the launch pad at 8:20 minutes of the mission time. It previously supported the launch of Crew-5, GPS III Space Vehicle 06, Inmarsat 16-F2, CRS-28, Intelsat G-37, and four Starlink missions.

At about 14:45 minutes, SpaceX deployed the Cygnus spacecraft into orbit, which will berth with the Space Station by early Wednesday.

Specifically, the spacecraft is carrying over 8,200 pounds of supplies including experimental, important robotics, and technologies for scientists at the Space Station.

Cygnus is scheduled for capture at 4:20 a.m. by the Canadarm2 robotic arm, which will be operated by NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara. Following the capture, the spacecraft will be installed on the Unity module’s Earth-facing port.

Cygnus will remain stationed until May when it will depart and return to Earth.

Falcon 9 Rocket MaxQ (source – SpaceX)