SpaceX has put on a double St. Patrick’s Day celebration by launching two orbital missions in one day on Friday (March 17).
The show began at 3:26 p.m. ET (21:26 Kyiv time) when SpaceX launched 52 Starlink Internet satellites into orbit from the U.S. Space Force’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Broadcast of the Starlink launch:
Then, at 19:38 Eastern time (01:38 Kyiv time on Saturday), a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the SES-18 and SES-19 telecommunications satellites lifted off from the US Space Force station at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Broadcast of the launch of SES-18 and SES-19:
Both missions went according to plan: The Starlink satellites were placed into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on schedule, and another Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral successfully delivered SES-18 and SES-19 into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.
Both Falcon 9 first stages also returned safely to Earth, landing at sea on SpaceX unmanned vehicles less than nine minutes after launch.
According to SpaceX, this was the eighth takeoff and landing for the Falcon 9 that launched Starlink, and the sixth for the rocket that launched SES-18 and SES-19.
The 52 Starlink satellites will join more than 3,700 other spacecraft in SpaceX’s vast broadband constellation, which will continue to grow in the future: Elon Musk’s company has authorization to deploy 12,000 Starlink satellites in low earth orbit, and it has applied for authorization to launch another 30,000 satellites.
SES-18 and SES-19 have gone further. The duo is headed for geostationary orbit, approximately 22,200 miles (35,700 kilometers) above our planet. From there, they will provide digital broadcasting to North America, according to EverydayAstronaut.com.
Friday’s launches were the 18th and 19th for SpaceX this year. And the launches will continue: Last summer, Musk said SpaceX could launch up to 100 orbital missions in 2023.
