As part of its continuous effort to achieve stable global mobile phone service, American spacecraft manufacturer SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 9’s 22 Starlink satellites into orbit in the early hours of today.
SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted Off Carrying 22 Starlink Satellites
The SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off at 1:17 a.m. EDT (0517 UTC) carrying 22 Starlink satellites at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
With today’s launch, SpaceX launched its second Starlink mission in the same week, demonstrating the company’s quick launch schedule and continuous attempts to grow its satellite broadband constellation. In areas where standard broadband services are limited or not available, the satellite broadband constellation seeks to offer global, high-speed, low-latency internet connectivity.
In less than one hour before the scheduled time of launch, the aerospace company confirmed in a tweet that the weather is 90% favorable for liftoff. The launch marks SpaceX’s 11th of the so-called V2 mini-satellites, which are larger and have four times the bandwidth of the previous models.
After stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage made an Atlantic Ocean landing on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship. This mission’s first stage booster had previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18, and SES-19, and four Starlink missions. This was the booster’s ninth flight overall.
According to the spacecraft manufacturer, the first-stage booster made a successful landing on the drone ship about 8 minutes and 20 seconds later. However, it further reveals in the tweet that deployment of the Starlink satellites is coming up 1 hour and 5 minutes into the flight.
Going by Astronomer Jonathan McDowell’s prediction, who tracks the constellation of Starlink satellites, the company has successfully launched more than 4,541 Starlink satellites into orbit, of which 4,487 are operational as of today.
