Oct. 17 (UPI) — SpaceX sent 22 Starlink satellites toward low-Earth orbit after a successful Falcon 9 launch from Florida on Tuesday.
The liftoff, from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 40, sent the spacecraft skyward at 8:39 p.m. EDT.
It was the 16th flight for the first-stage booster, SpaceX said on its website, adding that it previously had flown in support of missions for the GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, OneWeb Launch 17, ARABSAT BADR-8 and eight Starlink missions.
After its separation, the first stage landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The satellites were confirmed to have been deployed into low-Earth orbit where they will join Starlink’s growing constellation of more than 5,000 satellites that provide high-speed, low-latency Internet worldwide.
Tuesday’s launch came less than a week after SpaceX successfully sent another 22 Starlink satellites into orbit from the same launch pad. That launch was one of two SpaceX missions to go up that day.