SpaceX Launches 22 More Starlink Satellites Written 5 October 2023
On Thursday, October 5 at 1:36 a.m. ET, Spacex launched a Falcon 9 carrying 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. | Credit: NASA Spaceflight; YouTube; framegrab
SPACE reports that SpaceX “launched 22 more of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit early this morning (Oct. 5), on the company’s 70th orbital mission of the year.” The Starlink spacecraft “lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 1:36 a.m. EDT (0536 GMT).” The rocket had originally “been targeted to launch on Wednesday at 10:45 p.m. EDT (0245 GMT on Oct. 5), but was delayed several hours by poor weather conditions.” As to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage “returned to Earth for a vertical landing at sea on the SpaceX drone ship Just Read the Instructions about 8.5 minutes after launch.” It was the eighth “liftoff and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description.” This morning’s flight “was the 70th orbital mission for SpaceX in 2023. The majority of those launches have been dedicated to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of more than 4,800 operational satellites.”
Full Story (SPACE)
Video
SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with Starlink internet satellites
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)