A SpaceX booster made its 25th flight early Monday morning (June 23), sending 27 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit from Florida.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 1:58 a.m. EDT (0557 GMT) from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Although three flights short of the record, the Falcon’s first stage (B1069) achieved its mission and returned to make another landing on “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” a droneship positioned in the Atlantic Ocean.
This was SpaceX’s 465th landing, according to a counter on the company’s website.
The rocket’s upper stage, meanwhile, continued to climb into space and ultimately deployed the Starlink satellites (Group 10-23) about an hour into the flight.
Sunday’s launch was the 277th mission devoted to expanding the Starlink megaconstellation, which now has more than 7,800 active relays circling the planet, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
The Starlink network provides broadband speed connectively around the globe, especially in remote areas where other means of internet access are not possible or available. SpaceX is using the revenue from Starlink sales to help underwire its efforts to make humanity multiplanetary.
