On Monday, SpaceX launched 52 Starlink internet satellites from Florida and then another Falcon 9 from California. This was the company’s eighth low-cost “rideshare” flight, which put 72 small payloads from different vendors into orbit.
At 3:10 a.m. EDT, SpaceX’s 89th Starlink flight took off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It lit up the night sky and went up to the southeast.
ALSO: Satellite Internet from SpaceX: What you need to know
About an hour later, the 52 Starlinks were let go flying independently. This brought the overall number of Starlinks launched to date to 4,595. Jonathan McDowell, a space scientist, says that it is likely that 4,230 of these are working.
SpaceX’s Starlink constellation is a global network of relay stations in different orbital planes multiplying. It will eventually use laser-linked satellites to provide high-speed broadband access to any place on Earth.
At 5:35 p.m. EDT, the Transporter 8 mission took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, north of Los Angeles. It carried 72 rideshare payloads from many different companies and launch brokers.
Transporter missions are meant to get small payloads into space cheaply so they don’t have to wait for rides on tasks meant for bigger satellites. SpaceX charges $275,000 for a payload of 110 pounds and $5,500 for every 2.2 pounds more. These prices are seen as good deals in the expensive world of space activities.
During the Transporter 8 mission, many payloads were sent into space. These included pharmaceutical processing in microgravity and systems to clean up space debris, experimental military gear, commercial radar mapping satellites, and stations to watch Earth.
So far this year, Space has launched 38 Falcon 9s and two Falcon Heavies for the Starlink and Transporter 8 missions, putting about 1,295 packages into orbit.
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