CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — SpaceX successfully launched 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday night. 

What You Need To Know

  • A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink successfully launched Thursday night

  • It took off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

The targeted liftoff time for a Falcon 9 rocket on Starlink 6-55 mission was 10:37 p.m. ET, with backup opportunities available until 1:17 a.m. ET on Friday, May 3, according to SpaceX.

The 45th Weather Squadron gave an 85% chance of good liftoff conditions, with the only concerns being the cumulus cloud and attached anvil cloud rules.

This is the 19th flight for the first-stage booster supporting this mission, B1067. The previous 18 successful missions on its resume are:

CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, SES 03b mPOWER, PSN SATRIA, Telkomsat Merah Putih 2, and nine Starlink missions.

About the mission

The 23 telecommunications satellites from the SpaceX-company Starlink will be heading to low-Earth orbit to join the thousands already there.

Dr. Jonathan McDowell, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been recording Starlink satellites.

Before this launch, McDowell documented the following:

  • 5,896 are in orbit
  • 5,228 are in operational orbit