SpaceX successfully launches Falcon 9 with 54 satellites

San Francisco: SpaceX has launched 54 more of its Starlink broadband satellites in orbit and landed a rocket on a ship at sea.

A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, carrying 54 Starlink spacecraft, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida recently.

That was about 80 minutes later than initially planned, as SpaceX waited for some bad weather to clear.

A little less than nine minutes after launch, the Falcon 9’s first stage came down to Earth for a landing on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.

Later, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 launched the Starlink satellites into space, eventually putting all 54 of them into low Earth orbit as intended roughly 15 minutes after takeoff. SpaceX Starlink satellites launch

“Squeezing extra performance out of Falcon 9 — almost at 17 metric tons to an actual useful orbit with booster and fairing reusable!” Elon Musk tweeted after the launch. SpaceX Starlink satellites launch

As per the report, the most recent launch for SpaceX was the 38th of 2022, surpassing the company’s previous record for most orbital missions in a calendar year. It was the year’s 24th flight specifically focused on Starlink, SpaceX’s massive broadband constellation.

Source: Agencies