SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink satellites on Monday, weeks following a batch of them burned up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Starlink satellites
After Sunday’s launch was delayed “due to bad weather,” the mission successfully began Monday at 9:44 a.m. ET, with a Falcon 9 rocket blasting off from the Space Launch Complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The mission has deployed an additional 46 satellites into low Earth orbit as part of SpaceX’s “high-speed, low-latency” Starlink Internet service, which currently serves more than 140,000 users worldwide.
The launch apparently went unimpeded, with the rocket’s first-stage booster landing in the Atlantic at 9:54 a.m., just 10 minutes following take-off and the stage separating, the sixth time the Falcon 9 rocket, which has previously led five missions, has been launched. For Starlink satellites, along with Crew Demo-2, Anasys-2, CRS-21, Transporter-1 and Transporter-3.
The launch of this group of satellites comes just weeks following regarding 40 SpaceX satellites burned up in Earth’s atmosphere in early February thanks to a geomagnetic storm caused by a coronal mass ejection, a powerful explosion of energy from the sun. Exiting orbit “will return to the Earth’s atmosphere or have already entered once more,” but “it does not pose any collision risk with other satellites and by design when re-entering the atmosphere, which means no orbital debris is created and no parts of the satellite collide with Earth.” .
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX
About an hour and three minutes into the mission, 46 new Starlink satellites were deployed to low Earth orbit, joining 1,500 satellites already in orbit, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants to send a total of 42,000 satellites into orbit, which might That’s great for internet speed, but it has long raised concerns regarding space junk.
This is the company’s third Starlink launch this year alone following one launched in early February and January, and it always sounds like something out of science fiction.
Source: Mashable
