One up, one to go: SpaceX launched the primary of a scheduled two Starlink missions on Saturday (June 28).
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 27 of the broadband web satellites lifted off at 12:26 a.m. EDT from House Launch Advanced 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The brand new additions for SpaceX’s megaconstellation (Group 10-34) reached low Earth orbit about 9 minutes after they left the bottom and had been on monitor to be deployed roughly 50 minutes later.
Within the interim, the Falcon rocket’s first stage (booster B1092) flew again to the droneship “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” safely touching down for the fifth time.
The early morning Starlink launch is the second such flight SpaceX plans to drag off on Saturday. At 12:47 p.m. EDT (1643 GMT), the corporate has scheduled a second mission to ship 26 extra relay satellites from House Launch Advanced-41E at Vandenberg House Power Base in California.
Ought to that second launch go forward as deliberate, SpaceX’s Starlink community will move the 7,900 depend of energetic satellites, in line with satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.