SpaceX launches 54 Starlink satellites, lands rocket at sea

SAN FRANCISCO: Elon Musk-owned SpaceX has launched 54 more of its Starlink broadband satellites in orbit and landed a rocket on a ship at sea on Saturday night.

According to space.com, a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, carrying 54 Starlink spacecraft, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida Saturday at 11:41 p.m. EDT (0341 GMT) on August 28.

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.

"Squeezing extra performance out of Falcon 9 — almost at 17 metric tons to an actual useful orbit with booster and fairing reusable!" Musk tweeted after the 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. (IANS)

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