After a couple of short delays, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 last night from Cape Canaveral, Florida, lofting Starlink 6-8 — twenty-two second-generation Starlink satellites to orbit. The launch was picture-perfect, with the rocket clearly visible for several minutes after liftoff and even well past staging. Thunderstorms well off to the north and east-southeast added to the light show, with dozens of lightning strokes clearly visible but far away enough not to violate any range safety rules.

With this mission, Falcon 9 Booster 1078 completed its fourth flight successfully and landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which had been prepositioned on the Atlantic Ocean north of the Bahamas. Previously, B-1078 carried Crew-6, SES O3b mPower, and Starlink 4-4. After returning from sea, the booster will presumably be refurbished in SpaceX’s “Hangar X” facility at the Cape and re-used for a future mission.

The flight also set a new record for a launch pad “turnaround” at SLC-40, with a new low time of eighty-one hours and some forty-one minutes between launches. The pad is scheduled for another launch this week, Starlink 6-9, on Thursday at around 7:23 pm Eastern Daylight Time. If that launch proceeds as planned, the turnaround time would again be shortened, this time to seventy-five hours and eighteen minutes. Then, on Sunday, August 13th, SpaceX has Starlink 6-10 on the schedule, but no set launch time has been announced.