Miami, March 19 (EFE) .- A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket put another 53 satellites of the Starlink broadband internet network into orbit this Saturday, Elon Musk’s private space company reported.
Shortly after launch, the first stage of the B1051 rocket, which had taken off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the early hours of Saturday, returned to Earth and landed on the unmanned spacecraft called “Just Red the Instructions” located in the ocean Atlantic about 400 miles (640 kilometers) east of South Carolina.
The second part of the Falcon 9 continued its journey with its single engine to deploy the satellites into the proper orbit for separation and then those devices, aided by onboard ion thrusters, reached their operational orbit at an altitude of 540 kilometers (335 miles).
This was the 12th mission for the 230-foot (70-meter) rocket, which debuted in March 2019 with an unpiloted test flight by the Crew Dragon spacecraft. It is so far the one that has been used the most times in the SpaceX fleet.
More than 2,000 Starlink satellites are in orbit to date and, according to specialized media, the network has more than 250,000 users around the world, including the Government of Ukraine, to which SpaceX has sent two terminals to be able to have internet during the Russian invasion.
According to those media, SpaceX has permission to launch 12,000 satellites, but is seeking approval to deploy up to 30,000 more. EFE
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