Washington. December 18. INTERFAX - The reusable first stage of the American Falcon 9 launch vehicle, launched on Saturday with 52 Internet satellites of the Starlink project, made a successful controlled landing on a floating platform in the Pacific Ocean, the developer company SpaceX reported.
The launch was carried out at 04:41 East Coast time of the USA (at 12:41 Moscow time) from the launch complex of the US Space Forces at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The vertical landing of the first stage on the marine platform-the drone Of Course I Still Love You, which was located in the Pacific Ocean 645 km from the launch pad, was carried out nine minutes after the launch of the rocket.
This first reusable stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle has been used for launches for the 11th time.
This was the 34th launch of a group of Internet satellites into orbit since May 2019 as part of the Starlink project and the 18th this year. The previous batch of 48 Starlink satellites was launched on December 3. The SpaceX orbital grouping already consists of 1,890 spacecraft.
Currently, the company is the largest satellite operator in the world.
