SpaceX readies another 60 satellites
April 20, 2020
By Chris Forrester
SpaceX made a Twitter announcement on April 17th that it had successfully test-fired the engines on a Falcon 9 rocket in readiness for its next ‘Starlink’ launch of 60 satellites.
Weather permitting the launch will happen on April 23rd at 3.16pm Florida-time (19.16 UTC).
This will be the seventh Starlink overall launch, and the sixth operational flight. The batch of 60 satellites will go into Low Earth orbit. The rocket has flown three times before.
The rocket booster is designed to land on its drone barge ‘Of Course I Still Love You’, some 628 kms down range. The fairing for the launch was previously used to launch the AMOS-17 satellite in August last year.