Twenty-eight more Starlink satellites are now in Earth orbit after launching from Florida on Tuesday night (July 29).
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 11:37 p.m. EDT (0337 GMT on July 30) rom Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After a nine minute climb into space, the 28 Starlink broadband internet satellites (group 10-29) were on track to be deployed into their intended orbit.
The launch marked the 26th flight of the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage (B1069), which made it safely back to a landing on the droneship “Just Read the Instructions,” which was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean.
The 28 satellites added to SpaceX’s low Earth orbit megaconstellation, which now totals more than 8,050 active units (out of the over 9,300 launched since 2018), according to satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
The launch was SpaceX’s 96th mission of the year, of which all but three were on Falcon 9 rockets. The company plans two more liftoffs this week: another Starlink mission on Wednesday (July 30) from California and the launch of the Crew-11 astronauts to the International Space Station on Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
