SpaceX Launches Twenty-Three Starlink Spacecraft from Florida

Another set of SpaceX broadband satellites was put into orbit at evening, March 25.

23 of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites were launched by a Falcon 9 rocket at 7:42 p.m. EDT (2342 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Following its planned return to Earth, the first stage of the Falcon 9 successfully landed vertically on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, situated in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately 8.5 minutes after takeoff.

As stated in a SpaceX mission description, it was the seventh launch and landing for this specific booster.

If all goes as planned, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 will launch the 23 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) around 65 minutes after liftoff.

Launch was the 19th mission of 2024 to be dedicated to the construction of the Starlink megaconstellation, making it the 29th mission overall. Astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell states that prior to this liftoff, SpaceX had deployed 6,054 Starlink satellites, 5,587 of which are presently in low-Earth orbit operating.