On Monday, SpaceX achieved a successful lift-off of a Falcon 9 carrying 29 Starlink satellites. This marks their fifth mission this year. The launch originated from Cape Canaveral. The repeatedly used booster stage executed a successful touchdown on an ocean platform in the Atlantic.
SpaceX, the developing company, announced that the Falcon 9 launch vehicle on Monday successfully placed a fresh batch of 29 mini-satellites into orbit, aimed at expanding the constellation for the Starlink global internet system.
Confirmation has been received for the deployment of the 29 Starlink satellites.
This deployment signifies the fifth dispatch of Starlink hardware since the year commenced. The rocket’s ascent commenced from Launch Complex 40 at the U.S. Space Force Station at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday at 18:31 Eastern Time in the US, which translates to 02:31 Moscow time. Roughly an hour after liftoff, the satellites separated from the vehicle’s second stage and settled into their assigned orbital paths.
As part of this Florida-based mission, the rocket’s initial reusable stage, utilized for the 24th time, performed a controlled vertical landing onto the autonomous drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean following its separation maneuver.
Since May 2019, SpaceX has launched over 10.9 thousand satellites under the Starlink initiative. While some of these units have become non-operational or de-orbited, more than 9.5 thousand remain actively functional in orbit.
Moving forward, SpaceX has outlined intentions to:
deploy an orbital fleet comprising 12 thousand spacecraft,
subsequently augment this number to 34 thousand,
in order to establish a full-scale network designed to deliver high-speed internet access universally across the globe. The total financial commitment anticipated for realizing this far-reaching endeavor is estimated at 10 billion dollars.
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