SpaceX launches 49 Starlink internet satellites, lands rocket at sea

The Starlink internet megaconstellation is growing.

A two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with 49 Starlink satellites lifted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On January 19th, the est was 0203
The first stage of the rocket came down to the ocean off the coast of Florida about nine minutes later.
The Starlink satellite megaconstellation was launched in photos.

The first stage of a rocket is on a ship after it launches a bunch of satellites. This was the 10th launch and landing for this booster. The image is from the SpaceX.

The 10th successful landing for this particular booster, which had previously launched six dedicated Starlink missions, the gps III-3 satellite for the U.S. military, the Turksat 5A satellite for Turkey and the Transporter 2 rideshare mission, lofted 85 small satellites and three

The 49 satellites were deployed roughly 15 minutes after the launch. Confirmation of deployment success didn't come until about an hour later, because the second stage was out of range of ground stations.

Today's launch was the 36th dedicated Starlink mission, and it brought the total number of satellites lofted to more than 2,000. The only two TinTin A and TinTin B prototypes that lifted off were in February of 2018).
The majority of the Starlink satellites are alive.

There are 1,469 Starlink satellites active. There is a move to operational orbits. "Laser links are going to be activated soon," Musk said.
"Laser links" refers to an upgrade that was implemented in the year 2021, which allows Starlink satellites to communicate with each other efficiently without relying on ground relays.
Over the next few weeks and months, we should see many more Starlink launches. The company has permission from the US Federal Communications Commission to launch a total of 12,000 Starlink satellites.

There are other broadband megaconstellations in the works. OneWeb has already launched over 400 of their internet satellites into the sky. California startup Astra recently filed paperwork for a megaconstellation of about 13,000 craft, after Amazon announced plans to launch about 3,200 internet satellites of its own.

Today's successful rocket landing was the 103rd for the company, which reuses space hardware to boost efficiency and reduce costs. The two halves of the nose cone that surrounds satellites during launch already had one mission under their belts, and the goal was to fish them out of the sea for further reuse.
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