Flying a more westerly route, a Falcon 9 rocket and its cargo of Starlink satellites punctuated the end of July with liftoff Wednesday morning from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The rocket blasted off shortly after 11:30 a.m. Thursday from Space Launch Complex-4 with 19 Starlink satellites on board.
Approximately an hour later, SpaceX confirmed the rocket’s second stage deployed the satellites.
This was the 27th launch and landing for the first-stage booster, which successfully landed on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean about eight minutes after liftoff.
The rocket appeared to travel in a southwesterly direction rather than hugging the California coastline.
Launch trajectories and liftoff times are determined by where the payload needs to be placed in space.
The launch came as Starlink’s constellation has seen more than 9,300 satellites launched with more than 8,000 remaining in orbit, according to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell’s detailed report on the status of the spacecraft.
“Starlink is built to deliver reliable high-speed internet, even when a customer’s view of the sky isn’t perfect,” according to an update from the firm. “Trees, buildings and other obstacles can temporarily block the connection to a given satellite, but the system is designed in such a way that these are generally imperceptible to the user.
“A given user terminal in the US has 10s of satellites in view, providing diversity to route traffic via a satellite with a stable and unobstructed connection.”
The Starlink terminals automatically switch between satellites to address any degradation in the link, with the change occurring both proactively and reactively, for terminals installed at a fixed site or for mobile terminals along with any unpredicted issues, according to Starlink.
Earlier this month, Starlink revealed plans to launch more than 400 additional satellites to the polar inclination by the end of 2025. The added satellites should more than double the capacity for Alaskan customers, along with users in other high-latitude locations, Starlink representatives said.
Thursday’s Falcon flight marked the 31st from Vandenberg since the start of the year.
It also occurred on a busy day for SpaceX teams across the country.
A Florida launch attempt for a Falcon carrying NASA‘s Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station ended up getting delayed due to clouds.
In Texas, the team conducted a single-engine static fire test for the Starship vehicle, according to SpaceX.
The next launch for SpaceX at Vandenberg is planned between 7:05 and 11:05 p.m. Aug. 9 to deliver more Starlink satellites into space. This mission once was planned for Aug. 2.