On February 25, a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California will launch another set of Starlink satellites.
SpaceX launched 46 Starlink internet satellites to low Earth orbit on the Starlink Group 4-8 mission.
Launching from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Falcon 9 took to the skies at 9:44 AM EST on February 21.
This mission marked SpaceXs seventh launch of 2022, averaging a launch every 7.2 days so far.
The rockets first stage completed its 11th flight with a landing on a droneship near the Bahamas. The stage had previously launched the Demo-2 commercial crew mission, CRS-21 cargo mission, the Anasis-2 satellite, two Transporter rideshare missions and five Starlink missions. The booster is the second in SpaceXs fleet to have performed 11 launches.
The launch was the seventh Falcon 9 mission this year, keeping the company on a pace for approximately 50 launches this year. This was the fourth Starlink launch this year, with the other launches carrying the CSG-2 radar imaging satellite for Italy, the Transporter-3 rideshare mission and a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.
SpaceX is in the midst of deploying around 4,400 Starlink satellites in five orbital shells at slightly different altitudes and at different inclinations, or angles to the equator, enough to provide global internet connectivity.
The company has plans to eventually launch as many as 42,000 Starlink satellites to expand internet coverage.
