CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA (REUTERS) - SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Spacecom's AMOS-17 communications satellite at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Tuesday (Aug 6).

The mission comes nearly three years after a launch pad explosion destroyed a different Israeli communications satellite (Spacecom's AMOS-6) in September 2016, Business Insider reported.

The satellite will provide increased connectivity across Africa by supporting a "growth in a variety of broadcast, broadband, mobility, and data services," according to a press release. </s> WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th August, 2019) US carrier rocket Falcon 9 loaded with Israeli AMOS-17 communication satellite successfully lifted off from a space center in Florida, spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX said on Wednesday.

"Falcon 9 launches AMOS-17 off Pad 40 in Florida, marking this booster's third flight and SpaceX's 25th reflight of an orbit class rocket," the company said on Twitter.

The rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 23:24 GMT on Tuesday.

Amos-17 is set to replace Amos-5 satellite launched in 2011. Communication with Amos-5 was lost in 2015. Amos-17, built by Boeing, will provide Ka, Ku and C-band signal transmission and expand Israeli communications satellite operator Spacecom's coverage in Africa, the middle East and Europe. </s> SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is set to launch Israeli communication satellite Amos-17 into orbit from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Tuesday evening, after a suspected engine fault delayed its take-off, news agencies reported.

Communication company Spacecom, the Ramat Gan-based operator of the Amos (Affordable Modular Optimized Satellite) series, said on Monday that if final authorization is received, the launch will take place late Tuesday.

The satellite launch had been scheduled for Sunday, but was postponed after a suspect valve was identified in one of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle’s engines.

“As notified by launch company SpaceX, after an additional test of the launch site was successfully executed, the launch of the Amos-17 satellite has been scheduled for the early morning [Israel time] of August 7, 2019, subject to final approval from launch site authorities,” the company told the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

Once operational, Spacecom claims that Amos-17 will be the most advanced high-throughput satellite to provide communication services to sub-Saharan Africa. The satellite also offers service to growing satellite service markets in the Middle East and Europe.

 The reusable Falcon 9 launch vehicle, designed and manufactured by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is a two-stage rocket for the transport of satellites and other commercial payloads into orbit. </s> An Israeli communications satellite has been successfully launched from Florida, Spacecom, the company that operates the satellite, said on Wednesday.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted the satellite, Amos-17, into space on Wednesday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Spacecom said in a statement.

Amos-17 was deployed some 33 minutes after liftoff, Sapcecom said.

It maintains constant contact with the ground station and started its three-week journey towards its designated orbit in space.

Upon arrival, a series of three-month-long checks would begin before the satellite could become operational.

The 250-million dollars satellite is expected to provide communications services to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe through the next 15 years.

“It strengthens Israel’s international position in the field of communications satellites,” he wrote on Facebook.

The launch came amidst weather concerns over a lightning storm and heavy clouds.

In 2016, Spacecom lost Amos-6 after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launchpad. </s> SpaceX is preparing for a major satellite launch set to take place this week: The space transportation company is now targeting Aug. 6 to send Amos-17, an Israeli communications satellite, to space from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

On Tuesday, SpaceX aims to launch Amos-17 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the evening, Space.com reported. The launch window will be open from 6:52 p.m. EDT to 8:20 p.m. EDT and it depends on launch range availability, SpaceX said in a tweet.

Owned by Israeli company Spacecom, Amos-17 will provide satellite communication services to Africa, according to the Amos-17 satellite mission webpage. It will operate from 17 degrees east and will expand the company’s coverage of growing satellite service markets in Europe, the Middle East, and other global areas.

The first stage booster that will be used for the mission, 1047.3, is a veteran Falcon 9 rocket that has flown twice before, first in July 2018 when it carried the Telstar 19 Vantage satellite, then in November 2018, it sent Qatar’s Es’hail 2 communications satellite into orbit.

The 1047.3 rocket will not be recovered once it takes Amos-17 to space, since it needs to conserve its fuel supplies to make sure that Amos-17, which clocks in at 14,330 pounds, reaches the highest possible orbit, so there won’t be enough fuel to land itself out at sea on SpaceX’s drone ship or back at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Due to these arrangements, the Falcon 9 doesn’t have its grid fins and landing legs, and will conclude its service by landing in the ocean.

Tuesday’s launch will be the first time a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will ferry a Spacecom payload after the Amos-6 satellite was lost in fall 2016. Liftoff for the Amos-17 communications satellite might be tough though, since it will need permission from the Air Force’s Eastern Range and one of United Launch Alliance’s rockets, the Atlas V rocket, is also scheduled to liftoff on Aug. 8 next to the Cape Canaveral launch site. </s> • A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to launch an AMOS-17 communications satellite at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Tuesday evening local time.
• The mission comes three years after a launchpad explosion destroyed a different Israeli communications satellite.
• SpaceX will livestream the launch. The broadcast is set to begin 15 minutes before liftoff. The satellite will be deployed approximately 31 minutes later.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Spacecom’s AMOS-17 communications satellite at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Tuesday. The mission comes nearly three years after a launch pad explosion destroyed a different Israeli communications satellite (Spacecom’s AMOS-6) in September 2016.

The satellite from Tuesday’s launch, which happened at 7:23 p.m. EDT, will provide increased connectivity across Africa by supporting a “growth in a variety of broadcast, broadband, mobility, and data services,” according to a press release.

The satellite will be deployed approximately 31 minutes later.

“AMOS-17 will operate in the C, Ku and Ka bands with a digital channelizer to provide fixed high throughput (HTS) C-band coverage to Africa, steerable HTS Ka-band coverage to anywhere from China to Brazil, and extensive Ku-band coverage throughout Africa with additional coverage in Europe, the Middle East, China, and India,” SpaceX said in the press release.

Read more: A rocket SpaceX was testing exploded on a launch pad in Florida

No injuries were reported in the 2016 blast, but it did result in “the loss of the vehicle and its payload,” the SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted shortly after the incident.

For this launch, SpaceX will not be trying to land or collect its boosters after the launch, CBS News reported.

SpaceX will livestream the launch. The broadcast is set to begin 15 minutes before liftoff.

The mission timeline, provided by the press kit with approximated times, goes as follows:
• 00:01:04- Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket) </s> SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from its Florida launch pad. (SpaceX via YouTube)

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched a Boeing-built, Israeli telecommunications satellite called Amos-17 into geosynchronous transfer orbit today, adding to what’s shaping up as a largesse of liftoffs.

The launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida came at 7:23 p.m. ET (4:23 p.m. PT), toward the end of an 88-minute launch opportunity that was marked by weather concerns. This was a makeup launch for Spacecom, the Israeli satellite operator that lost its Amos-6 spacecraft when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad in 2016.

Amos-17 is designed to provide enhanced voice, video and data services to customers in Africa and parts of Europe, the Middle East, India and China.

The satellite headed for high Earth orbit, with a correspondingly high fuel requirement. That meant there wasn’t enough fuel left over to try bringing the first-stage booster back for a controlled recovery, as has become routine for SpaceX Falcon 9 missions. The booster had a good run: It was used previously for the Telstar 19 Vantage mission ln July 2018 and the Es’hail-2 mission in November 2018.

About half an hour after launch, SpaceX confirmed that Amos-17 was successfully deployed. “A great day for Falcon 9 and the Amos-17 customer,” launch commentator John Insprucker said.

Although the booster was a write-off, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reported that a section of the Falcon 9’s nose cone, or fairing, floated down on the end of a parachute and was caught in a net hooked up over a boat stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The video clip accompanying Musk’s tweet looked like something from a science-fiction movie:

SpaceX says that recovering the Falcon 9’s fairing intact should raise the rocket’s reusability quotient and potentially reduce launch costs by millions of dollars.

Today’s SpaceX launch came just a few hours after Europe’s Arianespace consortium launched two satellites into different geostationary orbits from its spaceport in the South American country of French Guiana, using its heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket.

Intelsat 39 will provide upgraded communication services to customers across Africa, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The second satellite, EDRS-C, is part of an effort led by the European Space Agency and Airbus to facilitate high-speed laser communications between orbiting satellites and ground stations.

On Thursday, United Launch Alliance is due to send an advanced communications satellite into geostationary orbit for the Air Force aboard an Atlas 5 rocket.

The latest Advanced Extremely High-Frequency satellite, AEHF-5, is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 41 – not far from Launch Complex 40, the pad that SpaceX used today. If today’s Amos-17 launch had been delayed, SpaceX would have had to stand down to let United Launch Alliance take its turn.

Built by Lockheed Martin, the satellites of the AEHF constellation are designed to provide secure, jam-resistant, nuclear-survivable satellite communications for military assets on land, sea and in the air. Communication services are provided to the U.S. military and partners in Australia, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands.

The Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage will also deploy a small Air Force satellite to test orbital debris tracking technologies.
• SpaceX launches its Falcon Heavy rocket for first time, putting a sports car (and Starman) in space </s> An explosion destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX and its satellite cargo during routine test firing at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday, two days before it had been due to blast off and place the satellite in orbit.

SpaceX said there were no injuries and that an “anomaly” during the static fire test resulted in the loss of the rocket and the communications satellite owned by Israel-based Spacecom, which was going to be used by Facebook.

The large blast shook the launchpad leased by SpaceX at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station just after 9 a.m. ET (1300 GMT), sending a thick plume of black smoke pouring into the air.

Musk said on Twitter that the loss of the rocket had occurred while it was being filled with propellant and that the problem originated around the upper stage oxygen tank.

It was not immediately known to what extent SpaceX’s launchpad was damaged or what the impact would be on the dozens of NASA and commercial satellite missions on its launch schedule.

People in buildings far from the facility felt the shock waves, but local authorities said residents were not at risk.

“Heard/felt weird BOOMS this morning as SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded … Thank God no injuries!” one local woman, Evie Hedman, wrote on Twitter.

Robin Seemangal, a space reporter with the Observer newspaper, quoted a source at the facility who told him it felt like the office they were in had been hit by lightning.

“We actually thought the building was collapsing, it shook us so bad,” Seemangal wrote in a tweet, quoting his source.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees commercial rocket launches in the United States, will work with SpaceX to understand the cause of the accident, said agency spokesman, Hank Price.

SpaceX had been due to launch its 29th Falcon 9 rocket before dawn on Saturday, carrying the AMOS-6 satellite owned by Israel’s Space Communication.

Facebook would have been among the customers for bandwidth on that satellite. Last year, Facebook said it was partnering with Eutelsat Communications to boost data connectivity to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Thursday’s launchpad explosion could derail the sale of Spacecom for $285 million to Beijing Xinwei Technology Group. The companies unveiled the agreement last week, but said it was contingent on the successful launch of the satellite and completion of its in-orbit tests.

In a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Spacecom said the satellite’s loss will have “a significant impact” on the company, and it would continue to provide updates about the situation. Its shares closed down 8.9 percent at 38.95 shekels.

In a post from Africa, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said he was deeply disappointed at the loss of the satellite, which he said would have provided connectivity to many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent.

“We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided,” he wrote.

SpaceX had planned to dispatch as many as nine more missions before the end of the year, including two flights to place a 20-member satellite network into orbit for Iridium.

SpaceX, one of two companies that fly cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, was next scheduled to take off in November for the orbiting laboratory, which flies 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

“NASA still is assessing what impacts, if any, the incident will have on future missions,” spokesman Michael Curie said in an email.

Shares of Musk’s companies Tesla Motors and SolarCity were down 4 percent at $203.65 and 5.5 percent at $19.50, respectively, in morning trade.

Tesla and SolarCity are not tied financially to SpaceX and it was not immediately clear if the explosion had affected their prices.

SpaceX says it has a backlog of more than $10 billion worth of launch orders from customers including NASA and commercial companies. On Wednesday, it said it had signed its first customer to use a previously flown Falcon 9 rocket, but that launch was not due until later this year. The rocket that blew up on Thursday had never been flown before.

The Hawthorne, California-based company was founded by Musk in 2002 and began launching its Falcon 9 rockets in June 2010, racking up 27 successful flights and one failure in a little more than six years.

SpaceX had recovered from a June 2015 launch accident that destroyed a load of cargo headed for the space station.

Earlier this year, it successfully broke a monopoly by United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, to win a military satellite launch contract.

The pad where SpaceX’s rocket was being prepared for launch is one of two operated by the company. Its other site is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

SpaceX also has leased one of the old space shuttle launchpads at the Kennedy Space Center, adjacent to SpaceX’s current launch site. A fourth U.S. site is under construction in Texas.

Musk set up SpaceX with the goal of slashing launch costs to make travel to Mars affordable. The company plans to fly its first unmanned spacecraft to Mars in 2018 and to send humans to the red planet as early as 2024.

Musk is expected to unveil details of his Mars program at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, next month.

The blast at Cape Canaveral marks a setback for the California-based private space firm and Musk, who wants to revolutionize the launch industry by making rocket components reusable.

Dramatic footage broadcast by ABC News showed the rocket burst into a roaring ball of flame amid what appeared to be a succession of blasts — sending its payload tumbling to the ground as a dense plume of black smoke filled the air.

“At approximately 9:07 am ET (1307 GMT), during a standard prelaunch static fire test for the Amos-6 mission, there was an anomaly at SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 resulting in loss of the vehicle,” the firm said.

“Per standard operating procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries.”

Facebook was contracted to use the Amos-6 to provide broadband internet coverage for large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and other remote parts of the world as part of the social media giant’s Internet.org initiative.

“Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well,” Zuckerberg said, referring to the solar-powered plane being developed by Facebook to make the internet available in remote areas.

European satellite operator Eutelsat — Facebook’s partner in the project — said in a statement it was committed to expanding broadband access in Africa despite the loss of the Amos-6.

A NASA spokeswoman told AFP that emergency services at the nearby Kennedy Space Center were monitoring the situation and conducting air quality tests to ensure there is no threat to the health of staff.

Officials at the center advised workers to remain inside until further notice, but Brevard County Emergency Management said there was no threat to the public from the incident.

The Amos-6 was the heaviest payload to date for a SpaceX rocket, with an estimated value of between $200 million-300 million, according to John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The accident- comes just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed after liftoff on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

Before that, SpaceX had logged 18 successful launches of the Falcon 9 — including six of 12 planned supply missions to the ISS carried out as part of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

It had carried out another eight successful launches since June 2015, including last month when a Falcon 9 successfully placed a Japanese communications satellite in orbit, and then landed intact on a floating drone ship.

Before then the firm lost several rockets as it attempted to land them upright on an ocean platform at the end of a flight — a crucial part of its strategy for reusable spacecraft.

While the blast is likely to disrupt SpaceX plans for six more launches between now and January 2017, experts made clear that such incidents are a normal part of the space learning curve.

“It’s clearly a setback, but how great the setback is and how long the delay, it’s impossible to know until there is more information available,” said Logsdon.

He noted that the launchpad damaged on Thursday was distinct from the one that will serve to launch SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, intended to ferry astronauts to the ISS starting in late 2017.

Loizos Heracleous, a professor of strategy at Warwick Business School, said such setbacks were par for the course — and would not affect SpaceX’s stated long-term goals of slashing the cost of space flight through the use of reusable rockets, and eventually colonizing Mars.

“SpaceX is gathering valuable experience, and each accident brings lessons on how to enhance the integrity of the craft for future missions,” he said.

“Given that SpaceX is working to provide NASA with a way to transport not just cargo, but also astronauts to the International Space Station, it is r six more launches between now and January 2017.

“It’s clearly a setback, but how great the setback is and how long the delay, it’s impossible to know until there is more information available,” said Logsdon.

A NASA spokeswoman told AFP that emergency services at the nearby Kennedy Space Center were monitoring the situation and conducting air quality tests to ensure there is no threat to the health of staff.

Officials at the center advised all staff to remain inside until further notice.

SpaceX had successfully launched a Falcon 9 last month, sending a Japanese communications satellite into orbit and then landing the rocket on a floating drone ship.

The explosion comes just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed just after liftoff, on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station (ISS).

The firm has also lost several rockets as it attempted to land them upright on an ocean platform at the end of a flight. </s> CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX successfully launched its ninth space mission of the year today (Aug. 6), delivering an Israeli communications satellite into orbit.

Despite typical summer storms in the area, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 7:23 p.m. EDT (2323 GMT), carrying skyward Amos-17, a communications satellite owned by the Israeli company Spacecom.

The California-based private spaceflight company originally aimed for a launch on Saturday (Aug. 3) but had to reevaluate its plans after preflight testing on Thursday (Aug. 1) indicated a valve issue on the Falcon 9. SpaceX opted to postpone the launch , replace the suspect valve and perform a second round of checks on the booster.

Related: Reusable Rocket Launch Systems: How They Work (Infographic)

Static-fire tests are a standard part of prelaunch testing that SpaceX conducts before each mission. During such tests, the rocket's first stage is held down and its engines are briefly fired to show that the booster's systems are working as expected prior to launch.

The Amos-17 mission is the first time a Falcon 9 rocket has flown a payload for Spacecom following the loss of its Amos-6 satellite on Sept. 1, 2016. On that day, SpaceX was in the process of conducting a prelaunch static-fire test when the rocket exploded. At the time, SpaceX performed its static-fire tests with the payload attached to the rocket, a practice the company has since stopped.

Spacecom says that the Amos-17 satellite will provide C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band communications services over Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The satellite is designed to last 20 years and costs an estimated $250 million, which includes the spacecraft, launch services and insurance.

The first-stage booster used for this mission, dubbed 1047.3 (an internal identifier by SpaceX), is a veteran member of the Falcon 9 fleet, having flown twice before. First launched in July 2018, it carried the Telstar 19 Vantage satellite.Then, in November 2018, the booster helped loft Qatar's Es'hail 2 communications satellite into orbit.

The sooty, stripped-down Falcon 9 first stage launched this evening without its iconic grid fins and landing legs, for this time it would not be recovered.

After pushing Amos-17 skyward, B1047.3 ended its service by splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean. The vehicle needed every drop of its fuel to ensure that the heavy Amos-17 satellite — weighing in at 14,330 lbs. (6,500 kilograms) when fully fueled — is able to reach the highest possible orbit. So, there was not enough fuel for the booster to land itself back at the Cape, or out at sea on a SpaceX drone ship.

However, SpaceX is still perfecting another hallmark of its reusability efforts: recycling pieces of the payload fairing (also called the rocket's nose cone). The company dispatched its fleet of recovery vessels a few days prior to launch, ensuring that a net-equipped boat called GO Ms. Tree would be in position to (hopefully) catch another fairing as it parachuted back to Earth.

Payload fairings are designed to protect satellites during launch. SpaceX fairings come in two halves, which are jettisoned once their rocket reaches space. Together, the two pieces cost about $6 million — a hefty chunk of the rocket's overall cost. (It currently costs a minimum of $90 million to book a Falcon Heavy launch and $62 million for SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.)

When fairings fall back to Earth, they're typically reduced to scrap metal if they slam into the water or are exposed to briny seawater. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly stressed the corrosive nature of salt water, explaining that the company wants to reduce costs by cutting down on the refurbishments that each fairing half goes through after landing in the ocean. And that's where GO Ms. Tree comes in.

Related: SpaceX's Fairing-Catching Boat in Photos

In June, during the company's latest Falcon Heavy launch , SpaceX pulled off its first midair catch, a long-sought rocket-reusability milestone.

Acting as a giant catcher's mitt, GO Ms. Tree (formerly known as Mr. Steven) caught the powerful rocket's falling payload fairing off the Florida coast on June 25. This was a first for the speedy boat, which had come close on multiple occasions but had never managed to seal the deal.

SpaceX already reuses its first-stage rocket boosters, but it wants to expand its recycling efforts to include the fairings, further reducing launch costs. To that end, the California-based aerospace company equips both fairing halves with parachutes and small steering thrusters, to navigate themselves back to Earth and into GO Ms. Tree's net.

SpaceX has spent nearly two years testing the net-ship technique during select launches as well as performing numerous drop tests. GO Ms. Tree went through many design changes, including three different sets of arms and four nets, before the winning combination was found.

And that work paid off again today: About an hour after liftoff, Musk announced via Twitter that GO Ms. Tree succeeded in snagging a falling fairing half.

Fairing caught, video posting soonAugust 7, 2019

At an adjacent launch pad, just 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) away, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket awaits its own scheduled liftoff on Thursday (Aug. 8).

The Atlas V is equipped with five strap-on solid rocket motors designed to help lift the massive payload on board — the fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite (AEHF-5). Built by Lockheed Martin, the communications satellite will be used by the U.S. military and other government agencies for secure voice, video and data communications.

Before the Falcon 9 could get Amos-17 off the ground today, SpaceX needed approval from the Air Force's Eastern Range.

During a media teleconference on Monday (Aug. 5) for the upcoming AEHF mission, Air Force officials discussed the Cape's two planned launches this week.

Air Force officials signed off on a plan to launch the Falcon 9 and Atlas V rockets 35 hours apart. The rapid-fire launch schedule began when the Falcon 9 took to the skies and will end early Thursday morning with the Atlas V's planned 5:44 a.m. EDT (0944 GMT) liftoff.

With more and more launch providers flocking to set up shop at the Cape, the Air Force has been streamlining its processes and updating infrastructure to be in a better position to support more launches with less downtime in between.

Related: Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will Reuse a Rocket Within 24 Hours in 2019

One key feature that helps enable faster turnaround times is the advent of an autonomous self-destruct mechanism on rockets, which cuts the workload for each launch.

The onboard safety system cuts out the need for military officers to manually send signals to self-destruct errant boosters in case of an emergency and instead relies on onboard computers. The switch will also save millions of dollars in infrastructure costs as old, outdated systems are updated.

(Range safety teams now use GPS data instead of relying on ground-based radar systems.)

With companies like SpaceX aiming to launch multiple times in a 24-hour period , the Air Force is also working to ensure that it can support multiple launches on the same day.

"We would like to get to the point where we could launch [multiple vehicles] in 24 hours," officials said.

Ultimately, meeting this goal will still depend on which launch complexes the vehicles were launched from and what range resources were needed. But Air Force officials expressed optimism that same-day launches are on the horizon.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 8:25 p.m. EDT with news of the successful payload-fairing catch by GO Ms. Tree.
SpaceX successfully launches Israeli communications satellite Amos-17 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch was provided by SpaceX for free following the destruction of Spacecom's Amos-6 satellite in 2016.