SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink internet satellites

FAN Editor

SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink internet satellites early Thursday in the first of two back-to-back Falcon 9 flights to put 120 broadband relay stations into orbit in a little more than one day.

The company’s 18th dedicated Starlink mission shot away from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 1:19 a.m. EST, shattering the deep overnight calm with a thundering roar and a burst of sky-lighting flame from the booster’s nine first stage engines.

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A time exposure captures the sky-lighting path of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 60 Starlink internet satellites as it climbs away from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, passing just to the left of a rising (and over-exposed) gibbous moon. The white lights directly below the left end of the arc are from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center where another Falcon 9 stands poised for launch Friday morning to put another 60 Starlinks into orbit. William Harwood/CBS News

Making it’s fifth flight, the first stage boosted the craft out of the dense lower atmosphere before falling away and successfully landing on an off-shore drone ship to chalk up SpaceX’s 74th booster recovery. The stage flew on its previous mission just 27 days ago, the fastest turn-around yet for a refurbished Falcon 9 booster.

The rocket’s second stage engine, meanwhile, fired twice to put the payload in the desired orbit. About an hour after launch, all 60 Starlink satellites were released in a single batch, slowly spreading apart as they drifted away. On-board thrusters will be used to nudge the spacecraft into their operational orbits.

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Liftoff from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. SpaceX webcast

The launch, SpaceX’s fourth flight so far this year, boosted the total number of Starlinks put into orbit to date to 1,085, with another 60 set for launch from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday morning at 5:14. The 27 hours and 55 minutes separating the two launches is believed to be the shortest gap between two Cape Canaveral orbit-class missions in four decades.

SpaceX has regulatory approval to launch thousands of Starlinks in multiple orbital planes to provide continuous space-based internet connectivity to commercial users anywhere in the world. The company currently is testing the service across the northern United States and Canada.

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