SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches 53 Starlink satellites to orbit

Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Friday, August 19, launched a new batch of Starlink internet satellites to low-Earth orbit (LEO). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 53 Starlink satellites lifted off at 3:21 p.m. ET, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the company, this was the ninth flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, and now four Starlink missions.

Starlink is a constellation of internet satellites that provides high-speed, low-latency broadband internet across the world. The internet relay satellites enable video calls, online gaming, streaming, and other high data rate activities that historically have not been possible with satellite internet – with download speeds between 100 Mb/s and 200 Mb/s and latency as low as 20ms in most locations, according to the company.

Meanwhile, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon resupply ship is headed back to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) and will splash down off the coast of Florida on Saturday loaded with scientific cargo for analysis. The uncrewed spaceship departed the space station one month after arriving at the orbiting laboratory with over 5,800 pounds of research investigations, crew supplies, and station hardware. It was the company’s 25th commercial resupply services mission to the space station for NASA.

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