SpaceX reached a milestone with its newest Starlink launch, sending the satellites into orbit on its 600th flight of a flight-proven booster.
The sexacentennial launch got here on the second of two Falcon 9 missions that lifted off lower than eight hours aside in a single day from Monday to Tuesday (July 13 to July 14). The primary flight, with Starlink batch 15-14, launched at 9:28 p.m. EDT (0128 GMT or 6:28 p.m. PDT native time) from Area Launch Complicated 4 East at Vandenberg Area Pressure Base in California.
The second flight, with Starlink group 10-45, adopted at 5:10 a.m. EDT (0910 GMT) from Area Launch Complicated 40 at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station in Florida.
Each launches efficiently deployed their payloads — 27 and 29 Starlink satellites, respectively — into their supposed orbits, as confirmed by SpaceX.
Earlier Booster B0193 missions
Each flights additionally efficiently recovered their Falcon 9 first stage boosters. B1093, launched from Florida, accomplished its fifteenth flight. B1080, launched from California, achieved its twenty eighth mission. The document for a single Falcon 9 first stage’s re-flight stands at 36 launches.
The addition of 56 extra Starlink satellites to SpaceX’s megaconstellation introduced the overall energetic variety of broadband web relay items to 10,839, in line with tracker Jonathan McDowell.
Along with Tuesday’s launch being the 600th launch of a flight-proven Falcon 9 stage, SpaceX now stands at 83 Falcon 9 missions this yr thus far.
