Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched on Sunday, sending 60 Starlink satellites into orbit.
The Falcon 9 took off from launch pad 39 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at around 6 am ET, SpaceX said on Twitter.
And “SpaceX” published a tweet on its account, writing: “The first stage of the Falcon 9 has landed on the floating ship Ofcourse I Steel Love U, to complete its ninth voyage.”
The Falcon 9 is a two-stage missile, with a height of 70 meters, according to information provided during the launch broadcast. SpaceX described it as “the first orbital missile capable of re-flight.”
Starlink is a satellite-based internet constellation designed to cover the planet with high-speed broadband, and it is often promoted as a potential way to bring connectivity to the billions of people who still lack reliable access to the Internet.
Achieving this requires swarms of satellites operating in low Earth orbit, about 550 km high in the case of “SpaceX”, to provide continuous coverage.
About 1,000 Starlink satellites have been sent so far, and SpaceX plans to develop Starlink to include more than 40,000 satellites, 5 times the total number of satellites launched by humans since the dawn of spaceflight.
SpaceX currently owns about a third of all active space satellites.
