Sept. 30 (UPI) — SpaceX continued its record pace of space launches late Friday night as it sent 22 Starlink satellites into lower Earth orbit from Florida’s Canaveral Space Force Station.
The launch took place at the Space Launch Complex 40 at 10 p.m. EDT with the first stage safely returning to Earth about 8 minutes after liftoff. It marked the 10th time the first-stage booster was used in a mission, according to SpaceX.
The record for the number of times a first-stage booster has been reused is 17 flights. SpaceX achieved that with two other boosters.
The satellites delivered to space were deployed by the Falcon 9 upper stage about 65 minutes after launch.
SpaceX’s mega constellations, which is being created to provide Internet service to some of the most remote areas of the planet, consist of 4,800 operational satellites. SpaceX has approval for 12,000 such satellites.
It marked the 39th time a SpaceX Falcon 9 took off from Cape Canaveral this year. It was also the 69th orbital mission among all of its launch sites, a new record.
