Sept. 19 (UPI) — Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit late Tuesday.
The rocket launched at 11:38 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
SpaceX had said prior to launch that weather was 90% favorable for liftoff.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/5SkARIOQ2y— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 20, 2023
The orbitals were deposited into space where they will join the ever-growing constellation of thousands of Starlink satellites that provide low-latency, high-speed Internet to customers worldwide.
The first-stage booster of the two-stage rocket was on its 17th flight and returned to Earth where it landed upon SpaceX’s A Shortfall of Gravitas autonomous barrage awaiting it in the Atlantic Ocean.
The launch comes nearly a month after SpaceX put its 5,000th Starlink satellite into orbit. It has been approved to deploy 12,000 of the orbitals but it has requested clearance for another 30,000.
