On Tuesday, November 24, at 9:13 p.m. EST, SpaceX launched its 16th Starlink mission from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, pushing 60 smallsats to orbit via the firm’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
The Falcon 9 first stage rocket booster that supported this mission previously flew on six other missions: the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission in September 2018, the Iridium-8 mission in January 2019, and four Starlink missions in May 2019, January 2020, June 2020, and August 2020.
Following stage separation, SpaceX landed Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which was located in the Atlantic Ocean. One half of Falcon 9’s fairing previously supported a mission and the other half previously supported two.
Watch a replay of this mission by selecting this direct link…
Last month, SpaceX launched its “Better Than Nothing Beta” test program. Service invites were sent to a portion of those who requested availability updates on Starlink.com and who live in serviceable areas. A couple weeks ago, Canada granted Starlink regulatory approval and SpaceX has now rolled out the service to parts of southern Canada.
