San Francisco: Setting a new record in the process, tech billionaire Elon Musk-run SpaceX has made it through its second attempt to launch 46 Starlink satellites into Earth’s orbit successfully.
On the microblogging platform Twitter, Musk congratulated the SpaceX team on a record number of launches.
“Deployment of 46 Starlink satellites confirmed — completing SpaceX’s 32nd mission of 2022,” SpaceX wrote on the microblogging site.
According to Space.com, the two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, which induced a scrub at T-46 seconds on Thursday, lifted off successfully from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday.
The liftoff took place at 1:40 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (17:40 Greenwich Mean Time) amid severely foggy conditions on the west coast.
The launch allowed SpaceX to surpass its 31 record launches of 2021 with a 32nd record launch in 2022 and still counting.
Falcon 9’s first stage also completed its mission, landing atop the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship in the Pacific Ocean as planned, nearly 8.5 minutes after the launch.
Prior to this effort, SpaceX most recently launched a set of Starlinks from Vandenberg on July 11.
On that occasion, another set of 46 Starlink satellites made it to space and the rocket landed successfully upon the droneship.
SpaceX has launched far more Starlink batches from the US East Coast, most recently from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida on July 17.
Starlink has more than 2,800 individual Starlink satellites launched to orbit as the company seeks to build its satellite-internet service.
Group 3-2 was SpaceX’s fourth Starlink launch in July alone.
The Musk-owned agency aims to build out the constellation quickly.
It has regulatory approval to send 12,000 Starlink craft to orbit.
The company is also asking an international regulator to approve 30,000 satellites after that.
(IANS)
