SpaceX launched a fresh set of Starlink internet satellites into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast on February 29th. This Leap Day launch comes after the firm postponed their annual astronaut launch.
At 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink satellites took out from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40.
After cancelling plans to carry four humans to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA on the agency’s Crew-8 mission, SpaceX transitioned into launch operations for this mission, known as Starlink 6-40, in the early hours of today.
Due to choppy offshore weather that might cause issues in the event of a launch abort, SpaceX decided to postpone Crew-8’s launch until no sooner than Saturday night (March 2nd). Crew-8 was originally slated to launch just after midnight on Friday, March 1st.
This same Falcon 9 first stage, which has previously assisted in the launches of five Starlink missions, four commercial satellite flights, and one unmanned NASA cargo run to the International Space Station, made its 11th flight today with the Starlink mission. Today, just over eight minutes after takeoff, the rocket made a return trip to Earth and landed on the drone ship at sea. Simply follow the instructions to return it to port for a later trip.
In an effort to establish a large megaconstellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) that would provide direct, worldwide, high-speed internet connection from space, SpaceX routinely puts Starlink satellites into orbit. At some point, the business plans to have up to 42,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit. On February 25th, the latest Starlink mission was launched. The Starlink Version 2 Mini satellites from SpaceX were the ones involved in today’s flight.
-Raja Aditya
