Friday Night Marks the Launch of SpaceX’s 6,000th Starlink Satellite

On Friday, March 15, SpaceX launched its 6,000th Starlink internet satellite into Earth orbit, tying the record for the most rocket reuse.

At 8:21 p.m. EDT (0021 GMT) on March 16, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 more Starlink satellites from the business lifted out from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

A SpaceX mission description states that this Falcon 9’s first stage liftoff was its 19th. That matched for the first time last month and matching a record set in December of last year.

With this flight, SpaceX has now put almost 6,000 Starlink satellites into orbit since launching the constellation in 2019.

About 8.5 minutes after takeoff, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Earth as scheduled, landing on the droneship “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” which was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean.

The 23 Starlink satellites were being transported by the Falcon 9’s upper stage to low Earth orbit, where they were scheduled to be released around 65.5 minutes following launch.

One of Elon Musk’s top priorities as the founder and CEO of SpaceX is extensive rocket reuse. As a matter of fact, Musk believes that the company’s next-generation vehicle, Starship, would make Mars colony economically viable due to its design, which aims to be entirely and quickly reusable.

Launched from SpaceX’s South Texas Starbase, the launch on Friday comes after the third, largely successful test flight of Starship. Thursday morning saw the start of the endeavour.