SpaceX launched one of its Falcon 9 rockets for the thirteenth time on Sunday morning (July 17), and it also demonstrated a landing.
a Falcon 9 Carry 53 from SpaceX starlink The Internet satellites took off at 10:20 a.m. EDT (1420 GMT) Sunday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the thirteenth launch of the first stage of Falcon 9, linking the reuse of the rocket to this SpaceX Set last month and matched just 10 days ago. The booster also helped in SpaceX’s loft demo 2 SpaceX representatives said at a conference Job description (Opens in a new tab).
Related: Starlink megaconstellation from SpaceX is launched in pictures
And that booster could potentially fly again: Just under nine minutes after takeoff, it descended for a vertical landing aboard a SpaceX Just Read the Instructions drone, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
53 Starlink satellites deployed from the upper stage of the Falcon 9 about seven minutes later, at 15.5 minutes after liftoff, according to tweet (Opens in a new tab) From the company.
According to the company’s mission broadcast, the gliding halves that protect the satellites during their journey into orbit made their third flight today, marking SpaceX’s 50th mission to use the gliding halves. It was also to be caught from the water for use in a future mission.
Sunday’s ride continues into the very busy 2022 for SpaceX. Today’s flight was the 31st Falcon 9 mission this year, and it’s already pegged the company’s 2021 launch tally.
Starlink is SpaceX’s massive constellation of broadband satellites. The company owns Launched more than 2,800 Starlink spacecraft To low Earth orbit yet, and more likely to go up in the not-too-distant future: SpaceX has permission to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites, and has applied for approval to launch an additional 30,000 spacecraft on top of that.
Mike Wall is the author of “Abroad (Opens in a new tab)Book (Great Grand Publishing House, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrials. Follow him on Twitter Tweet embed (Opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter Tweet embed (Opens in a new tab) or on Facebook (Opens in a new tab).
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