The Falcon 9 heavy launch vehicle on Tuesday, May 4, successfully launched another batch of 60 mini-satellites into low-Earth orbit, which should replenish the orbital grouping of the global Internet coverage of the Starlink system. This was announced by the developer company SpaceX on Twitter.
"The withdrawal of the Starlink satellites has been confirmed," the company said. As part of the project, this is the 26th launch of a group of Internet satellites into orbit since May 2019.
At 15: 01 US East Coast Time (22: 01 GMT) The launch was carried out from Launch Complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center (Florida). The broadcast was conducted on the SpaceX Twitter page.
Approximately 1 hour and 4 minutes after the launch of the rocket, a group of Starlink satellites was launched into the specified orbit. In addition, the first reusable stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle made a controlled vertical landing 8 minutes 39 seconds after launch on the automatic floating platform Of Course I Still Love You, which was located in the Atlantic about 600 km from the Cape Canaveral spaceport. This first reusable stage of the launch vehicle was used for launches for the ninth time.
Earlier, on April 29, a batch of 60 Starlink satellites was also launched. Taking into account the current satellites, the SpaceX orbital constellation will consist of 1,563 spacecraft. The company is currently the largest satellite operator in the world.
In the future, SpaceX intends to deploy an orbital grouping of 12 thousand spacecraft of this type to create a full-scale network that will provide the inhabitants of the Earth with broadband Internet access in any corner of the planet.
