Space X launched 23 Starlink satellites early Sunday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in yet another milestone of its ambitious satellite internet program. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 12:11 a.m. from Launch Complex 40 and then lit up the Florida skies. In just 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s reusable first-stage booster touched down on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic Continuing SpaceX’s streak of precision landings.
That booster mission marked the second use of that particular booster, which previously launched the NOAA GOES-U satellite in June. The Starlink deployment is the 123rd Falcon 9 launch of 2024, highlighting SpaceX’s unparalleled cadence across the globe. With more than 80 Starlink missions conducted so far this year, the company now boasts more than 6,800 operational satellites orbiting Earth.
Last Wednesday, it did so for the 300th time when SpaceX successfully recovered the first stage of the Falcon 9. The achievement came in Starlink Mission 9-14, launched off Vandenberg Space Force Station in California. That mission included deploying 20 Starlink satellites, 13 of them equipped with direct-to-cell technology.
This new technology will allow standard cell phones to access the internet at remote locations where connectivity in general, has been poor, according to reports. Taking to Twitter, CEO SpaceX Elon Musk celebrated the completion: “First Starlink satellite direct-to-cell phone constellation now complete”. Bandwidth per beam currently makes for approximately 10mbps of throughput but Musk clarified that the next generations would offer many orders of magnitudes greater capabilities.
Altogether, SpaceX has now flown 419 launches and conducted 381 successful landings: a sterling record in the industry. Next up will be mPOWER-E satellites for SES. The launch window opens Thursday afternoon at Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A.
A new batch of Starlink satellites launched Sunday, including 13 fitted with direct-to-cell capabilities, for a 1:22 a.m. liftoff. That’s the type of continuous betterment of satellite technology combined with reusable rockets that propel SpaceX’s endeavors into the future of global connectivity and space exploration.
