SpaceX simply prolonged its single-year launch document but once more.
A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off as we speak (Nov. 5) at 8:31 p.m. EST (0131 GMT on Nov. 6) from Area Launch Advanced-40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Area Power Station, carrying 29 of SpaceX’s Starlink web satellites towards low Earth orbit (LEO).
SpaceX has elevated its launch cadence yearly since 2019, when it carried out 13 orbital flights. In 2024, SpaceX launched 138 missions, 134 of them orbital and the opposite 4 Starship take a look at flights.
Starlink has been an enormous driver of the current increase in Falcon 9 launches. Greater than 100 of this 12 months’s flights, for instance, have been dedicated to constructing out the Starlink megaconstellation.
Earlier Booster 1094 missions
Immediately’s liftoff was the fifth for this Falcon 9’s first stage, a booster designated 1094. It beforehand launched three missions to the Worldwide Area Station — two of them crewed — and Starlink 12-10.
After stage separation as we speak, B1094 carried out deceleration and touchdown burns to securely contact down on SpaceX’s “Simply Learn the Directions” droneship within the Atlantic Ocean about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, continued carrying the 29 Starlink satellites towards LEO, the place had been deployed on schedule about an hour into flight. They’re becoming a member of greater than 8,800 different spacecraft within the Starlink megaconstellation, which supplies wi-fi web service to clients throughout the globe.
