With a slight delay of less than half an hour due to weather, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Friday night into Saturday, May 31/June 1, 2024, from the Station's Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) space forces Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX has launched another batch of Starlink satellites into orbit (SEE ), reports Space.com. Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth on schedule about 8 minutes after launch, landing on a drone ship – “A Shortfall of Gravitas” – in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the 14th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to SpaceX's mission description. Seven of its 13 flights to date have been Starlink missions.
Meanwhile, Falcon 9's upper stage continued to carry Elon Musk's 23 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, where they were deployed about 65 minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX has launched 23 more Starlink satellites into orbit Video capture
The recent Starlink launch marks four years since SpaceX's first crewed launch
The launch in early June 2024 marked SpaceX's 57th orbital mission of the year and its 40th Starlink-centric liftoff. It also marked the fourth anniversary of SpaceX's first crewed launch. This is the Demo-2 test flight of the first Crew Dragon spacecraft, which launched NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station on May 31, 2020.
To date, the company has launched more than 6,500 Starlink satellites, of which approximately 6,000 are currently operational.
The recent Starlink launch is part of a very busy period in spaceflight. For example, on the evening of June 1, 2024, Rocket Lab plans to launch a cubesat – a NASA climate nanosatellite – and Boeing's Starliner capsule is scheduled to take off with astronauts on board for the first time, followed by the Chang'e robotic mission 6 of China, which is expected to land on the far side of the Moon.
