SpaceX launched 23 Starlink satellites for their orbital-based Internet service tonight from Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 booster. Liftoff was at 8:10 PM EST from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. Roughly eight-and-a -half minutes after liftoff, Booster B1062 touched down safely near the Bahamas completed its work for the evening. Simultaneously, the second stage continued to carry the company’s payload to orbit, which it achieved successfully at about the same time the first stage booster was touching down.

Mission Trajectory

Tonight’s launch was to the southeast, as has been customary with other launches of the Group 6 batch of Starlink satellites.

18th Flight for Booster B1062

Tonight’s flight was the16th flight for the first stage booster B1062.

It previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, mPOWER-a, PSN SATRIA, and seven Starlink missions. Following stage separation, the first stage landed on the autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of the Bahamas.

The booster will be returned to Port Canaveral and then transferred to SpaceX’s Hangar X facility at Kennedy Space Center for inspect and ostensibly re-use on a future mission.

Next Launch

On Tuesday, January 30th SpaceX will launch Northrup-Grumman’s Cygnus CRS-2 towards the International Space Station aboard a Falcon 9. This launch will be the 20th resupply mission carried out as part of NG’s Commercial Resupply contract with NASA, and will ferry supplies for the station’s crew, equipment, as well as new scientific experiments to the orbiting outpost.