SpaceX keeps on extending its satellite-internet constellation with its 186th overall launch.
SpaceX’s 100th launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station included a set of 54 Starlink satellites, which launched to orbit on Thursday (Oct. 20) at 10:51 a.m. EDT (1451 GMT). “With the completion of today’s launch, it marks SpaceX’s 48th successful Falcon 9 mission of 2022,” SpaceX Space Operations Engineer Siva Bharadvaj said during live commentary.
This was the tenth flight overall for this specific Falcon 9. It’s first stage contacted down somewhat less than nine minutes later at sea on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. The satellites successfully sent into low Earth orbit barely 15 minutes after takeoff, as per SpaceX.
Starlink is a constellation of internet satellites constructed primarily to offer service for remote regions. The network is gigantic and consistently developing; with in excess of 3,100 estimated operational satellites in orbit, SpaceX has desires to extend that by tenfold pending regulatory approval.
Starlink service has demonstrated urgent to besieged Ukrainians during the ongoing Russian intrusion of Ukraine, and SpaceX recently vowed to continue to support the constellation’s Ukraine service after at first saying the Pentagon ought to assist with bearing the cost.
SpaceX had a then-record 31 launches in 2021 and is near arriving at 50 already in 2022, with over two months left in the calendar year. Large numbers of the current year’s launches have been devoted to Starlink, however others have sent NASA astronauts to the International Space Station and lofted U.S. military satellites, among different tasks.