SpaceX launches 46 Starlink satellites, lands rocket at sea

By temporary On Sep 17, 2022 87

Another day, another Starlink launch.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Wednesday (Aug. 31) at 1:40 a.m. EDT (0540 GMT; 10:40 p.m. local California time), carrying 46 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites to orbit.

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the two-stage Falcon 9‘s first stage came down for a pinpoint landing on the SpaceX robotic droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 46 Starlink internet satellites to orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Aug. 31, 2022. (Image credit: SpaceX)

It was the seventh launch and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage, SpaceX wrote in a mission description (opens in new tab).

The rocket’s upper stage continued flying to low Earth orbit. It deployed the 46 Starlink satellites a little over an hour after launch as planned, SpaceX confirmed via Twitter (opens in new tab).

SpaceX has already launched more than 3,000 satellites for Starlink, a giant internet constellation that beams broadband service to customers around the world. Many of those spacecraft have gone up this year; so far in 2022, SpaceX has launched 25 dedicated Starlink missions.

Starlink makes up a majority of SpaceX launch traffic these days; the company has now conducted a total of 39 orbital missions this year to date.

The megaconstellation will continue to grow, in both numbers and ambition. SpaceX has permission to launch 12,000 Starlink satellites, and it has applied for approval from an international regulator to loft another 30,000 on top of that.

And last week, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced plans to beam connectivity directly to smartphones using Starlink. That project, a joint effort between SpaceX and T-Mobile called Coverage Above and Beyond, will employ Starlink Version 2 satellites, a heftier and more capable spacecraft that’s expected to start launching next year.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 2 a.m. EDT on Aug. 31 with news of a successful launch and rocket landing, then again at 1:30 p.m. EDT with news of satellite deployment.

Mike Wall is the author of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).

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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com (opens in new tab) and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, “Out There,” was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.