Maintaining a document launch tempo, SpaceX fired off 53 extra Starlink web satellites atop a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday utilizing a primary stage making its thirteenth flight.
The rocket soared away from pad 40 on the Cape Canaveral House Power Station at 10:20 a.m. EDT, kicking off SpaceX's one hundred and sixty fifth Falcon 9 flight since 2010, the thirty first thus far this 12 months and its fourth flight to orbit thus far this month.
The primary stage, SpaceX's third to make 13 flights, propelled the rocket out of the decrease ambiance, then fell away and flew itself to an on-target landing on an offshore droneship. It was SpaceX's 131st profitable touchdown and its 102nd at sea.
At virtually the identical immediate, the second stage accomplished the climb to area and some minutes after that, all 53 Starlinks had been launched to fly on their very own, slowly spreading aside as they drifted away.
SpaceX has now launched 2,858 Starlinks in 53 flights general in its ongoing push to construct a industrial space-based web system, though not all of these are nonetheless operational, in accordance with astrophysicist and veteran satellite tv for pc tracker Jonathan McDowell.