At 10:19 a.m. EST, the Falcon 9 lifted the satellites, including 13 with direct-to-cell capabilities to low-Earth orbit from pad 40.
It was the 21st flight for this first-stage booster, including 12 Starlink missions.
Eight minutes later, the booster landed on A Shortfall of Gravitas, a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
An hour after the launch, the satellites were deployed.
On Tuesday, SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a rocket booster on its drone ship off the coast of an island in The Bahamas. It was the "first international landing of a first-stage booster" for the private company.
The next SpaceX launch is scheduled for 2:42 p.m. PST Saturday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
SpaceX also has scheduled a launch from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than Wednesday for launch Intuitive Machines' second robotic mission to the moon. A Falcon 9 is set to fly several commercial payloads along with three NASA science payloads as part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
"Humanity has never witnessed three lunar landers en route to the Moon at the same time, and Athena is ready to rise to the occasion," Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said in a news release. "This profound opportunity to make history isn't solely built on technology -- it's established through the relentless dedication of our people, who have turned the Company's words about a reliable cadence of lunar missions into action."
This is a key part of NASA's Artemis lunar exploration efforts.
A moon landing with humans won't take place until at least 2027.
Related Links
Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com
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