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takyon writes:

SpaceX will attempt to reuse its first Falcon 9 Block 5 booster tonight (August 6):

On May 11, SpaceX launched the new, optimized-for-reuse Block 5 variant of its Falcon 9 rocket for the first time. Just before the flight, Ars asked company founder Elon Musk how long it would be before we saw the first reflight of a Block 5 booster.

"We are going to be very rigorous in taking this rocket apart and confirming our design assumptions to be confident that it is indeed able to be reused without taking it apart," Musk said at the time. "Ironically, we need to take it apart to confirm it does not need to be taken apart."

Apparently it did not take that long to tear the first stage of this rocket apart, because less than three months later, this booster is back on the launch pad for a geostationary mission set to launch late Monday night. SpaceX is targeting launch of the Merah Putih satellite to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit during a two-hour launch window that opens at 1:18am ET Tuesday (5:18 UTC). The launch will occur from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The first stage will attempt to make a landing on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship after completing its primary mission. Weather conditions appear favorable.

As is customary for SpaceX a of the launch will be available on YouTube. The webcast should begin about 15 minutes before the launch window opens.

SpaceX is also planning to launch 71 satellites on one rocket later this year:

Later this year, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch more than 70 satellites into orbit — the largest batch of satellites sent into space at one time from one of the company's vehicles or of any other US rocket company. Dubbed the SSO-A mission, the flight is scheduled to take off from Vandenberg Air Force in California in late 2018, though an exact date has yet to be determined.

The epic satellite rideshare was coordinated and brokered by Spaceflight Industries — a company dedicated to finding launch "real estate" for small satellites that need to get into space. Spaceflight has become a go-to resource for many small satellite manufacturers, as they have limited options for getting their hardware into orbit. Huge rockets like the Falcon 9 or Atlas V are typically far too big and expensive to send a handful of tiny satellites into space. For the last decade, these companies have only really had just two options: launch their satellites as cargo to the International Space Station, where they are later deployed, or hitch a ride on the flight of a larger satellite.

The world record is currently held by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which launched 104 satellites at once back in February 2017.

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