SpaceX to launch next Starlinks batch

Apart from buying Twitter, Elon Musk is also focusing on sending the latest batch of his Starlink broadband satellites into orbit. SpaceX is targeting a Falcon 9 launch of 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth and land on the ‘Just Read the Instructions’ droneship stationed downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, will continue carrying the Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit.

The engines will switch off and the booster will separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9 about two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. The second stage’s single Merlin engine will fire to push the 53 Starlink payloads into a preliminary parking orbit, while the booster configures itself for a scorching-hot plunge back into the atmosphere.

It will be the sixth lift-off and landing for this Falcon first stage. The booster also helped launch two GPS satellites, another Starlink batch and two pioneering private crewed missions — the Inspiration4 flight to Earth orbit in September 2021 and Ax-1, the first all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station.

This new launch will take the total launched to 2,441 craft. SpaceX has launched 2,335 Starlink satellites to date. Around 2,067 of those satellites are still in orbit and appear to be working, and the rest have either failed or fallen out of orbit.

SpaceX plans to launch as many as 42,000 internet satellites. The launch of the Starlink 4-14 mission will be followed by the flight of another Falcon 9 rocket currently standing on pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a few miles north of pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

SpaceX says the service is best suited for customers in remote, hard-to-reach areas, such as rural communities, isolated homes, islands, and ships. Customers can sign up for Starlink service online by paying a reservation fee and paying $599 for an antenna and modem. SpaceX charges $110 per month for consumer-grade Starlink service.