SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket on Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral – Spaceflight Now

Replace 1:58 a.m. EDT: SpaceX launched the Starlink 6-48 mission.

SpaceX launched its newest batch of Starlink satellites throughout a mission from Cape Canaveral House Power Station. The Falcon 9 flight was the corporate’s twenty fourth devoted Starlink launch in 2024.

Liftoff of the Starlink 6-48 mission from House Launch Advanced 40 at Cape Canaveral House Power Station occurred at 1:40 a.m. EDT (0540 UTC).

The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail quantity B1083 within the SpaceX fleet, might be launching for a second time. Its first flight supported the launch of the Crew-8 astronaut mission to the Worldwide House Station on March 3, 2024.

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1083 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Simply Learn the Directions.’ This marked the 77th touchdown on JRTI and the 295th booster touchdown up to now.

In line with astronomer and knowledgeable spacecraft tracker, Jonathan McDowell, as of Apr. 7 there have been 5,765 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit. The midnight mission added one other 23 satellites to that operating complete. With the addition of Albania this week, SpaceX’s Starlink web service is now out there in 74 nations.

Through the thirty ninth Annual House Symposium being hosted in Colorado, area habitation firm Huge additional strengthened its ties to SpaceX by asserting that its forthcoming business area station, Haven-1, might be outfitted with Starlink web service.

“If you’ll want to present high-speed, low-latency, steady web connectivity on an area station in orbit in 2025, SpaceX Starlink is the one choice,” mentioned Max Haot, Huge’s CEO in an announcement. “We anticipate their community and expertise main place to proceed and speed up over time, which is why we’re excited to have the prospect to associate with SpaceX on deploying their first laser connectivity for an area station.”

Announcement: Haven-1 to be the world’s first business area station linked by SpaceX Starlink: @SpaceX @Starlink pic.twitter.com/tLY15HB0a0

— VΛST (@huge) April 9, 2024

The Starlink service will transcend Haven-1 to incorporate “future Huge platforms… which the corporate plans to bid for in NASA’s upcoming business low Earth orbit locations competitors.”

The information comes a 12 months after Huge introduced its settlement with SpaceX to fly two astronaut missions to the the Haven-1 area station after its launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket in 2025.