After two unsuccessful efforts due to adverse weather, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space enterprise, SpaceX, launched another Falcon 9 rocket into orbit on Monday.
The night sky above Southern California was illuminated when the Falcon 9, carrying 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit, took launch from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The rocket launched at the scheduled time of 7:30 p.m., according to KTLA, and was visible across Southern California.
The launch on Monday, according to officials, was the fifteenth flight of the Flacon 9 first-stage booster rocket. This includes eight more Starlink flights and multiple missions for the US Space Development Agency.
The Falcon 9 rocket made a successful separation from its cargo and touched down in the Pacific Ocean on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You.
In the meantime, the upper stage will keep hauling in order to bring the 22 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), where they will be deployed around sixty-two minutes following launch, according to Space.
In addition to being the 32nd Falcon 9 mission of 2024, the postponed launch was the 21st flight specifically devoted to the construction of the Starlink megaconstellation.
Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and satellite tracker, stated that 5,633 of the 6,100 Starlink satellites that SpaceX has launched are presently in use.
Those already astounding figures are only going to rise in the far future.
12,000 Starlink vessels will remain in low-Earth orbit (LEO) according to SpaceX’s plans, while another 30,000 are awaiting authorization to be added.
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