Photo by: Charles Boyer / FMN
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on the company’s 125th Starlink mission Saturday night, and added another group of Starlink satellites into the growing constellation of over 5,500 small satellites that provide internet access globally for its customers.
The launch was at 11 pm from the launch pad at SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, sending Booster 1078 on its sixth mission. Previously, it had been to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station on the Crew-6 mission, followed by the O3b
Booster tail number B1078 landed offshore near the Bahamas on the automated drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas. Previously, B1078 completed the Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station, the SES-owned O3b Networks mPOWER 3 and 4 satellites, and three Starlink missions. After returning to Port Canaveral, the booster will be inspected and refurbished at SpaceX’s Hangar C facility in the Kennedy Space Center and will presumably be prepared for its next mission.
This was the 67th overall orbital launch from the Cape this year, and SpaceX’s 85th Falcon 9 launch in 2023.
