SpaceX follows up crew launch with Starlink mission for 25th of the year

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel
·1 min read

The cloud cover in Cape Canaveral gave a SpaceX Falcon 9 a gorgeous palate for a Starlink launch on Saturday morning.

The 25th Falcon 9 rocket of the year took 53 of the company’s internet satellites to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:19 a.m.

The launch marks the end of a busy week for the commercial company that also saw the landing of the Crew-2 astronauts off the coast of Florida on Tuesday followed by the Wednesday night launch from Kennedy Space Center of four more astronauts on the Crew-2 mission to the International Space Station.

For the Starlink launch, SpaceX used a first stage booster for the ninth time. Its previous uses included the Crew Demo-2 launch in May 2020 among others.

The booster landed in the Atlantic on the company’s drone ship “Just Read the Instructions.”