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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Wednesday (Aug. 31) at 1:40 a.m. EDT (0540 GMT; 10:40 p.m. local California time), carrying 46 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites to orbit.
About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the two-stage Falcon 9’s first stage came down for a pinpoint landing on the SpaceX robotic droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which was stationed in the Pacific Ocean.
It was the seventh launch and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage, SpaceX wrote in a mission description
The rocket’s upper stage continued flying to low Earth orbit. It will deploy the 46 Starlink satellites a little over an hour after launch, if all goes according to plan.
SpaceX has already launched more than 3,000 satellites for Starlink, a giant internet constellation that beams broadband service to customers around the world. Many of those spacecraft have gone up this year; so far in 2022, SpaceX has launched 25 dedicated Starlink missions.
Starlink makes up a majority of SpaceX launch traffic these days; the company has now conducted a total of 39 orbital missions this year to date.