TITUSVILLE, Florida — As an alternative of a crewed astronaut launch from the House Coast this morning, as had beforehand been deliberate, SpaceX launched their flash news stack of Starlink web satellites.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from House Launch Complicated-40, at Cape Canaveral House Power Station at 9:05 a.m. EDT (1305 GMT), carrying the Starlink 12-24 mission to orbit.
The satellites, stacked 23 tall, embody 13 with SpaceX’s new Direct to Cell capabilities. This was the twelfth liftoff for the Falcon 9 booster supporting the mission, tail quantity B1083, which has flown 6 earlier Starlink launches.
As deliberate, B1083, shut down its 9 Merlin engines and separated from Falcon 9’s higher stage about 2.5 minutes into flight.
Roughly six minutes later, the booster executed a touchdown burn to soundly contact down on SpaceX’s Just Read the Instructions droneship, stationed within the Atlantic Ocean.
The rocket’s higher stage continued its LEO insertion burn with its 23 payloads. The 13 of these outfitted with SpaceX’s Direct to Cell know-how are a part of the corporate’s next-step Starlink efforts, which goals to assist remove mobile useless zones for cellular units across the globe. SpaceX has partnered with T-Mobile within the U.S. to convey this functionality to clients.
One hour into flight, the Starlink satellites have been launched to start their particular person maneuvers into extra particular orbits, becoming a member of with be part of SpaceX’s rising megaconstellation.
SpaceX’s Starlink community at present consists of greater than 7,000 satellites, working in a grid that blankets practically all the planet, save for the polar areas. Starlink provides its customers low-latency, high-speed web from wherever they can obtain a satellite tv for pc sign, with its community rising bigger each week.
Tuesday’s launch was SpaceX’s 71st Falcon 9 mission of 2025. Fifty-three of these have launched batches of Starlink satellites to hitch the constellation.