SpaceX launched 46 satellites and landed a rocket on a ship at sea on Sunday (July 10).
A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket carrying 46 SpaceX Starlink Internet satellites lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Space Base on Sunday at 9:39 p.m. EDT (04:39 July 11 Kyiv time). On the broadcast of the launch before the launch, the rocket is barely visible due to the thick fog at the launch site, but a few seconds after the launch, the Falcon 9 rocket beautifully emerges from the fog and heads into space. The embedded video in the header of this article captures just that stunning moment.
About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth and landed on SpaceX’s Of Course I Still Love You unmanned spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean.
It was the sixth launch and landing of the Falcon 9’s first stage. The booster also helped lift Michael Freilich’s Sentinel-6 Earth observation satellite, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission and three batches of Starlink, SpaceX said in a mission statement.
Meanwhile, the Falcon 9 booster stage deployed 46 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit 63 minutes after liftoff, as scheduled, SpaceX said via Twitter.
Deployment of 46 Starlink satellites confirmed
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 11, 2022
Sunday night’s launch was SpaceX’s 29th orbital mission this year and the 17th for Starlink, the company’s vast array of Internet satellites.
To date, SpaceX has launched more than 2,750 Starlink satellites, and the number will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. The company already has approval to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites and has applied to the international regulator for approval to host up to 30,000 more.
We will also remind that the Internet from Starlink is successfully working for the defense of Ukraine. Currently, more than 15,000 Starlink satellite Internet terminals have been transferred to our country, and it also recently became known that 12,000 stations will be transferred to our country. These terminals are used mostly in the Armed Forces, state institutions and communication operators.
Furthermore, ordinary Ukrainians can already order and receive Starlink stations for their needs through the company’s official website.
