A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was launched into space early Friday with a batch of 22 Starlink satellites from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo
Aug. 11 (UPI) — SpaceX early Friday successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into space from Florida’s famed Cape Canaveral.
The rocket launched at 1:17 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after liftoff was bumped slightly ahead in the launch window.
Weather appeared to have been the cause for the delay, as the launch mission execution forecast states that thunderstorms had hit Florida Thursday night, presenting a 40% chance of a scrubbed mission due to anvil and cumulus clouds.
But conditions were forecast to improve to 10% throughout the window.
The payload was deployed into low-Earth orbit where they will join the constellation of thousands of Starlink satellites that provide high-speed, low-latency Internet worldwide.
The launch vehicle was on its ninth mission, and returned to Earth where it landed upon SpaceX’s Just Read The Instructions drone barge that had been waiting in the Atlantic Ocean.
Both fairing halves used in the mission — one of which was on its 10th mission and the other its 11th — were to be retrieved with the use of the Doug support vessel.
The mission was SpaceX’s 55th of the year and 254th overall.
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