SpaceX continued its almost continuous delivery of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit on Thursday (June 11), with its latest launch from California.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 of the internet broadband relays (Group 17-44) launched at 11:05 a.m. EDT (1505 GMT or 8:05 a.m. PDT local time) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. About an hour later, SpaceX confirmed the satellites were successfully deployed.
NROL-87 | NROL-85 | SARah-1 | SWOT | Transporter-8 | Transporter-9 | Transporter-13 | NROL-146 | Bandwagon-2 | NROL-153 | NROL-192 | Transporter-14 | Transporter-15 | CAS500-2 | 19 Starlink missions
The flight's first stage booster (B1071) completed its 34th mission, touching down on its four landing legs atop the autonomous droneship "Of Course I Still Love You," which was prestaged in the Pacific Ocean. The booster is one flight shy of tying the reuse record set by Booster 1067 on June 8.
The launch came the same week as SpaceX's highly anticipated IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the NASDAQ stock market. This could have been the last SpaceX launch before it goes public, but another Starlink launch is currently targeted for Friday morning in Florida, before the market opens.
IPO aside, the launch did increase the population of the Starlink megaconstellation to more than 10,600 satellites, according to tracker Jonathan McDowell.
Thursday's launch was SpaceX's 67th Falcon 9 launch of the year and 660th completed mission since 2008.
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Robert Z. PearlmancollectSPACE.com Editor, Space.com ContributorRobert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, a daily news publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018. In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History. In 2023, the National Space Club Florida Committee recognized Pearlman with the Kolcum News and Communications Award for excellence in telling the space story along the Space Coast and throughout the world.
