SpaceX continued its virtually steady supply of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit on Thursday (June 11), with its newest launch from California.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 of the web broadband relays (Group 17-44) launched at 11:05 a.m. EDT (1505 GMT or 8:05 a.m. PDT native time) from House Launch Advanced 4 East at Vandenberg House Drive Base in California. About an hour later, SpaceX confirmed the satellites had been efficiently deployed.
Earlier Booster 1071 missions
The flight’s first stage booster (B1071) accomplished its thirty fourth mission, touching down on its 4 touchdown legs atop the autonomous droneship “Of Course I Still Love You,” which was prestaged in the Pacific Ocean. The booster is one flight shy of tying the reuse record set by Booster 1067 on June 8.
The launch came the same week as SpaceX’s highly anticipated IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the NASDAQ stock market. This could have been the last SpaceX launch before it goes public, but another Starlink launch is currently targeted for Friday morning in Florida, before the market opens.
IPO aside, the launch did increase the population of the Starlink megaconstellation to more than 10,600 satellites, according to tracker Jonathan McDowell.
Thursday’s launch was SpaceX’s 67th Falcon 9 launch of the yr and 660th accomplished mission since 2008.
