Elon Musk’s aerospace company Space X successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a stack of 48 Starlink satellites and two BlackSky Earth observation satellites into orbit. Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:12 pm (EST). “The Falcon has landed,” SpaceX representatives said on a live broadcast on Thursday.
The liftoff has now marked the second upgraded batch of Starlink satellites to launch from Florida on the previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket. Nine minutes after the launch, the rocket’s first stage returned to Earth, touching down on SpaceX’s drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” for a successful upright landing. While taking to Twitter, SpaceX also confirmed the deployment of 48 Starlink satellites and BlackSky satellites.
“The Falcon has landed,” SpaceX representatives said on the live broadcast. “You can hear the cheer and applause and there’s the visual; this first stage booster has landed a total of nine times.”
The company set a rapid launch pace earlier this year but briefly paused for a few months to upgrade its own broadband internet satellites, which are now equipped with laser-based systems to communicate with each other in orbit, and less with the ground, the company has said.
