SpaceX continues to push the boundaries of rocket reuse.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 27 of the corporate’s Starlink web satellites lifted off at midnight (0400 GMT) on Monday (April 14) from Florida’s Cape Canaveral House Power Station.
It was the twenty seventh launch for the rocket’s first stage, breaking a reflight file that this similar booster set two months in the past. Sixteen of its liftoffs have been Starlink flights, SpaceX wrote in a mission description.
The booster got here again to Earth safely for the twenty seventh time on Sunday as effectively. A bit of over eight minutes after launch, it touched down on the drone ship “Simply Learn the Directions,” which was stationed within the Atlantic Ocean.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, continued carrying the 27 Starlink satellites towards low Earth orbit (LEO), deploying them there on schedule about 65 minutes after launch.
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Monday’s liftoff was the forty third Falcon 9 launch of the yr already, and the twenty ninth dedicated to constructing out the Starlink community. The LEO megaconstellation presently consists of nearly 7,200 operational satellites and is rising on a regular basis.
SpaceX has two different launches below its belt in 2025 as effectively — check flights of its Starship megarocket, a strong, absolutely reusable car that the corporate sees as a game-changer for spaceflight and exploration.
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