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SpaceX Starlink 6-12, September 3, 2023

Charles Boyer

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 3, 2023. This mission carried another batch of Starlink satellites to orbit and it was a record-breaking 62nd orbital launch of the year for SpaceX. There have been 46 launches from Cape Canaveral / Kennedy Space Center this year, with all but two coming from SpaceX.

A long exposure of the SpaceX Starlink 6-14 launch resulted in a “launch streak” showing the trajectory of the rocket. The curve is an optical illusion — the rocket was constantly ascending, but the curve of the Earth shows it getting lower.

The launch was part of an impromptu “triple-header” beneath partly cloudy skies. First, about an hour prior to the launch, a “train” of Starlink satellites passed over the launch pad, following the direction of the rocket that would launch later. Then, the launch itself. Finally, after another 90 minutes or so, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon returned Crew-6 to earth, concluding their roughly six-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

Crew-6 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and crossed over the Florida peninsula on its way to splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida.
A long-exposure of Falcon 9’s flight to loft 22 new Starlink satellites to orbit on September 3, 2023.
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