SpaceX Launches 48 Starlink Internet Satellites Atop American Falcon 9 Broomstick

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent the company's newest set of Starlink broadband satellites to low-Earth orbit on Wednesday. Before the launch, engineers mocked Russia's recent statements about American spacecraft.

In a Twitter post last week, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk leaned into Rogozin's comments, dubbing the Falcon 9 - the workhorse spacecraft of SpaceX's reusable fleet — a trustworthy "American broomstick."

SpaceX has also donated Starlink terminals to Ukraine to aid with the restoration of communications and internet access across the nation, emphasizing cybersecurity to prevent the terminals from being jammed.

Musk confirmed on Twitter the successful launch of new 48 Starlinks to orbit.

SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites Atop 'American Broomstick'

While this was not SpaceX's first flight — the firm has flown seven Starlink flights this year, as well as three other missions — there was one especially amusing remark thrown into the launch procedure.

"Time to let the American broomstick fly and hear the sounds of freedom," the SpaceX's launch director said per Space.com just before launch.

Dmitry Rogozin, the president of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, took a shot at the US last week when he blocked the sale of Russian rocket engines to the US in reaction to the increasingly tense situation between the two nations.

"Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what," he said per a previous Science Times report.

Like United Launch Alliances' Atlas V and Northrop Grumman's Antares, other American rockets are powered by Russian engines, even though Falcon 9 rockets employ SpaceX's unique Merlin engines.

Although ULA has said that it has adequate engines in stock for its planned launches, Northrop Grumman has yet to comment on how the embargo may affect its missions.

SpaceX said Wednesday's launch was the fourth flight and landing for this specific Falcon 9 first stage. In addition to the Arabsat-6A mission in April 2019, the Space Test Program-2 (STP-2) flight for the US military in June 2019, and the Italian Earth-observation satellite COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 in January, the booster launched the Arabsat-6A mission in April 2019.

Arabsat-6A and STP-2, the first two flights on that list, were launched by SpaceX's massive Falcon Heavy rocket, consisting of three Falcon 9 cores strapped together, with the center one topped by a second stage. A Falcon 9 took COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 to orbit.

SpaceX Starlink Updates

SpaceX was permitted to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites and has applied for permission to launch up to 30,000 more. The Starlink 4-10 mission, launched on Wednesday, was the megaconstellation's 41st flight.

Due to a solar storm last month, SpaceX lost 40 Starlink satellites, with some Starlinks falling from orbit and burning up in Earth's atmosphere only days after launch. Since then, SpaceX has raised its first deployment height to prevent repeating the mishap.

Check out more news and information on Starlink in Science Times.