After weather delays, SpaceX deploys 51 Starlink satellites into orbit.
Moreover, the Falcon 9 rocket successfully landed on a ship at sea.
After a number of setbacks caused by inclement weather, SpaceX finally succeeded in putting another significant number of its Starlink broadband satellites into orbit on March 3.
At 1:38 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Friday, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 51 Starlink spacecraft successfully blasted off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California (1838 GMT; 10:38 a.m. local California time).
The first stage of the Falcon 9 spacecraft successfully returned to Earth eight minutes and 45 seconds after liftoff and landed in a precise fashion on the SpaceX droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which was positioned in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
According to a report of a SpaceX flight, this specific rocket made its 12th launch and landing throughout the course of the mission (opens in new tab). The Crew-1 and Crew-2 missions were SpaceX's first operational crew flights to the International Space Station for NASA. These missions were among the booster's 11 prior missions.
At 15.5 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's upper stage resumed its ascent into low Earth orbit, where it eventually released the Starlink satellites in accordance with the original schedule.
The mission that was supposed to take place on Friday was put off for days. The launch was originally scheduled to take place on Tuesday (opens in new tab) (Feb. 28), but SpaceX moved it to Thursday (opens in new tab) instead, ostensibly to avoid a scheduling conflict with the preparation work being done for the early-Thursday (March 2) liftoff of the Crew-6 astronaut mission from Florida. The corporation then made the announcement on Thursday that there would be yet another weather delay(opens in new tab), pushing the launch back to Friday.
A Falcon 9 rocket lifted 21 Starlink "V2 small" satellites into orbit on Monday evening from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Friday's mission took place only a few days after that last Starlink launch (Feb. 27).
Older Starlink spacecraft, such as the 51 satellites that were launched on Friday, are not as capable as the V2 small, which is a next-generation variation of the Starlink spacecraft. They are merely little in comparison to the conventional V2s, which are future satellites that are intended to be launched onboard SpaceX's enormous Starship Mars rocket, which is still in the process of creation. And V2 minis are larger than their predecessors as well.
More than 4,000 Starlink satellites have already been sent into orbit by SpaceX, but the megaconstellation will continue to expand for a very long time into the future. The business run by Elon Musk has been granted permission to launch 12,000 of the spacecraft, and it has also submitted an application to be granted authority to launch an extra 30,000.
The two Starlink flights are part of a busy week for SpaceX, which also launched Crew-6 to the International Space Station on Thursday at 12:34 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (0534 GMT) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Because of a problem with the ground system, Monday morning's attempt to launch Crew-6 was called off late in the countdown and the flight was never attempted. Because of the forecast for poor weather, the next opportunity will be on Thursday.
This article was updated at 1:25 p.m. EST on February 28 to reflect the new launch date of March 1 for the Starlink mission. It was updated once more at 3:15 p.m. EST on March 1 to reflect the new target date of March 2, and it was updated once more at 12:30 p.m. EST on March 2 to reflect the new launch time of 1:38 p.m. EST on Friday, March 3. On March 3, at 14:10 hours Eastern Standard Time, it was updated once again with the latest news of a successful launch, rocket landing, and satellite placement.