SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites from Florida

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SpaceX launched one other batch of its broadband satellites to orbit this night (March 25).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 of SpaceX’s Starlink web satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as we speak at 7:42 p.m. EDT (2342 GMT).

The Falcon 9’s first stage got here again to Earth as deliberate, acing its vertical touchdown about 8.5 minutes after liftoff on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed within the Atlantic Ocean.

Associated: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky

a black and white rocket rests on the deck of a ship at night

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on a drone ship at sea shortly after launching 23 Starlink satellites from Florida on March 25, 2024. (Picture credit score: SpaceX by way of X)

It was the eighth launch and touchdown for this explicit booster, in keeping with a SpaceX mission description.

The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, will deploy the 23 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) about 65 minutes after liftoff, if all goes in keeping with plan.

Right now’s launch was the twenty ninth Falcon 9 mission of 2024 already, and the nineteenth dedicated to constructing out the Starlink megaconstellation. Earlier than this liftoff, SpaceX had launched 6,054 Starlink satellites, 5,587 of that are presently operational in LEO, according to astrophysicist and satellite tv for pc tracker Jonathan McDowell.