Elon Musk's SpaceX Sets New Benchmark: 53 Starlink Satellites Launched Into Space

SpaceX, a spacecraft manufacturer founded by Elon Musk, successfully completed a sea rocket landing while launching a significant number of new Starlink Internet satellites into orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 53 Starlink satellites lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3:21 p.m. EDT (19:21 GMT).

Around nine minutes into the flight, the Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth for a vertical touchdown on the SpaceX drone ship "A Shortfall of Gravitas," which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.

It was the seventh launch and landing for this exact Falcon 9 first stage, according to a SpaceX mission summary. The rocket's upper stage eventually deposited the 53 satellites into low Earth orbit, around 15 minutes after launch.This was confirmed by SpaceX on Twitter.

SpaceX has now launched over 3,000 satellites for the Starlink constellation, which beams broadband internet to consumers all across the world.Many of those satellites have been launched this year. SpaceX has executed 37 orbital launches as of 2022, 23 of which were dedicated Starlink missions.
 

The company's previous record for the most orbital missions in a year was 31, set in 2021; this launch cadence breaks it. A few hours before the most recent Starlink flight, a robotic Dragon cargo ship from SpaceX left the International Space Station.On August 20, the Dragon returned to Earth through an ocean splashdown.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is an American spacecraft manufacturer, space launch provider, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars