ONE Hawk 9 rocket with 52 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida on Saturday at 7:32 p.m. EDT (2332 GMT). Just under nine minutes later, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth for a precision landing on SpaceX’s “droneship” A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was in the Atlantic Ocean. It was the fourth takeoff and landing for this booster, according to a SpaceX mission description (opens in a new tab).
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 52 Starlink Internet satellites from the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida on September 24, 2022. (Image credit: SpaceX) The Falcon 9 upper stage deployed 52 Starlinks 15.5 minutes after liftoff as scheduled, SpaceX confirmed via Twitter (opens in new tab). Saturday’s launch continues the creation of SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation, which provides Internet services for people around the world. The company has now built nearly 3,400 Starlink satellites and plans to launch thousands more. Starting next year, SpaceX will begin launching Starlink Version 2 satellites, which will be much larger and more capable than the current iteration. The V2 spacecraft will be able to beam connectivity directly to smartphones and will do so for T-Mobile customers through a project called “Coverage above and beyond”, founder and CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk announced last month. SpaceX plans to launch batches of Starlink V2s in its massive, next-gen Spacecraft vehicle, which will also carry cargo and people to the moon and Mars, if all goes according to plan. Starship’s first orbital test flight ‘highly likely’ to happen in NovemberMusk said recently. Saturday’s launch was SpaceX’s 43rd orbital mission of 2022, adding to the company’s single-year launch record. The previous high for SpaceX launches in a year was 31, which was achieved in 2021. Editor’s note: This story was updated at 7:55 p.m. EDT on September 24 with news of a successful launch, rocket landing and satellite deployment. Mike Wall is the author of “Out there (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018, illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or enabled Facebook (opens in a new tab).
