SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites, nails booster landing

SpaceX added to its rising Starlink mega-constellation with a launch to orbit and booster restoration. A Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Advanced-40 at 9:52 p.m. EDT (0152 GMT on April 25), carrying 28 new satellites into low Earth orbit. The spacecraft had been stacked vertically contained in the rocket’s nostril cone, the place they sat on the Falcon 9’s 9 first-stage Merlin engine stack that blasted them into the sky over Florida’s Area Coast.

Falcon 9 Booster Lands on Droneship as 28 Starlink Satellites Attain Orbit

In keeping with a SpaceX mission replace, the Falcon 9’s first stage, booster B1069, separated from the higher stage about 2.5 minutes after launch. Roughly six minutes later, it executed a exact touchdown on the autonomous droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, stationed within the Atlantic Ocean. This marked the twenty third profitable flight for B1069 and the nineteenth time it supported a Starlink mission. The rocket’s second stage continued on its course, deploying the 28 satellites into low Earth orbit one hour into the mission.

These satellites come as new additions to the mission (Starlink 6-74), which is now amplifying an in depth community of a minimum of 7000+ operational items established in orbit. Starlink’s gates are inching open, as every new flight strengthens international service, and the firm goals to beam high-speed web to almost each location on Earth, besides the polar area. Within the days to come back, the brand new arrivals will steadily drift into their assigned orbital slots.

SpaceX Marks forty seventh Falcon 9 Launch, Expands World Starlink Protection

SpaceX continues to be sustaining a breakneck launch tempo for 2025, with Thursday’s flight being the forty seventh Falcon 9 mission of the 12 months and the thirtieth carrying Starlink satellites solely. The timeline displays the agency’s willpower to broaden satellite tv for pc broadband deployment, notably to rural and poorly served elements of the world. Every new batch enhances service reliability and builds resilience into the constellation’s construction.

The Starlink program continues to reshape international web accessibility, backed by the Falcon 9’s confirmed reusability and precision restoration. As they tick off their profitable booster touchdown and payload deployment, SpaceX continues to redefine each house journey logistics and satellite-powered entry on Earth.