SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 28 Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida (photos)
SpaceX has launched another Starlink mission, keeping a steady pace of adding to the satellite megaconstellation every few days.
A Falcon 9 rocket launched SpaceX’s Starlink 6-75 mission Thursday night (May 1) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. The Space Coast liftoff occurred at 9:51 p.m. EDT (0151 GMT on May 2) from CCSFS’s Launch Complex-40 (LC-40) .
The rocket carried 28 new Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), where they will join a constellation of more than 7,200 broadband satellites.
A long-exposure photo of the May 1 Starlink launch. (Image credit: SpaceX)
Main engine cutoff of the Falcon 9 booster’s nine Merlin engines occurred about 2.5 minutes into flight, followed quickly by stage separation. The rocket’s first stage, a booster designated B1080, executed a retrograde burn to slow its velocity as the second stage continued on to LEO.
Approximately eight minutes after liftoff, B1080 landed safely on SpaceX’s Just Read the Instructions drone ship, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the 18th launch of B1080 and the booster’s 12th Starlink mission.
The rocket’s upper stage continued toward LEO with its 28 Starlink satellites and deployed them there one hour into flight as planned. They will spend the next few days maneuvering into more specific orbits to join SpaceX’s growing megaconstellation.
Graphic showing the general outline for SpaceX’s rocket landing on a droneship at sea. (Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX’s Starlink network consists of more than 7,200 satellites and counting, operating in a grid to form a lattice across nearly all of the planet, save for the poles. Starlink offers users a high-speed internet connection from anywhere (other than the poles) they are able to point their Starlink receiver toward the sky.
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Thursday’s launch was SpaceX’s 51st Falcon 9 mission of 2025, and the company’s 34th Starlink launch so far this year. The company has also launched two test flights of its Starship megarocket in 2025.
