SpaceX Adds 60 New Starlink Satellites; Falcon 9 Nails Landing

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched a new batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites into orbit on Wednesday, Mar. 24. The starship landed successfully at sea, capping off the company's current fruitful flight.

The veteran Falcon 9 rocket launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 4:28 a.m. EDT.

The recycled rocket's first stage returned to Earth nine minutes later for its sixth successful landing. The drone ship operated by SpaceX was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean, waiting for the capture.

Today's flight is the Hawthorne, California-based rocket builder's fourth Starlink launch this month. SpaceX is getting closer to completing the first of its 1,440-strong internet constellations.

The constellation could eventually number in the tens of thousands. Space.com said SpaceX had been granted authorization to launch up to 30,000 satellites, with the possibility to launch many more.

SpaceX tweeted a short yet cool video, that features footage from the company's own live stream. The clip is below, and it's just 22 seconds long.

A Delightful Ride

B1060 is one of six Falcon 9 boosters in SpaceX's fleet of flight-proven rockets that they used in today's mission. The experienced pilot has accomplished six flights, including four separate Starlink missions. In June 2020, the booster launched an upgraded GPS III satellite for the US military and a communications satellite for Turkey in January.

This was the first rocket that the US military allowed SpaceX to retrieve, a departure from its prior military launches, which saw the booster discarded after the payload was shipped. NASA followed suit recently, allowing SpaceX to reuse its rockets for crew flights. The forthcoming Crew-2 mission will be the first crewed flight to fly on a refurbished spacecraft, with no earlier launch date than Apr. 22. (SpaceX would also use a Crew Dragon spacecraft for that mission.)

Wednesday's launch was SpaceX's ninth overall in 2021, and the seventh for this particular booster this year. Its last flight was on Feb. 4, and engineers worked for just over 50 days to get it ready to fly again.

This is Falcon 9's 112th overall flight and the 58th booster relaunch. In reality, SpaceX has used a flight-proven rocket for every launch so far in 2021. It's also SpaceX's fourth successful landing in a row after one of its six previous flights was missed on Feb. 15 when the rocket lost an engine during flight and failed to land on the drone ship.

Falling Fairings

NASASpaceFlight said the Shelia Bordelon, SpaceX's newest yacht, made her debut this morning, and the rocket's payload faired out of the sea. The yacht, painted neon pink and blue, sailed into Port Canaveral last week and parked at the SpaceX docks, causing a stir among fleet watchers.

It's uncertain if this boat will be a long-term part of the fleet or whether it'll only be helping out temporarily. GO Ms. Chief and GO Ms. Tree have been relegated to the background for some missions as SpaceX relies on its Crew Dragon rescue vessels to retrieve the fairings from the ocean. Since the next crew mission is coming soon, those boats will have to return to Dragon duty.

Both halves of the fairing have flown before and will hopefully do so again soon.

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