Starlink success despite Starship glitch
March 5, 2021
By Chris Forrester
A fully-fledged rocket explosion occurred a few seconds after apparently landing flawlessly at Elon Musk’s Texas facility on March 3rd. At his Florida launch site, meanwhile, all went like clockwork with 60 new Starlink satellites launched with 100 per cent mission success.
The launch on March 4th was something of a worry given that it had been planned and cancelled a few times since a previous rocket booster landing on February 15th had gone wrong because of an engine anomaly.
This time, from Kennedy Space Centre’s Launch Complex 39A, at 03.24am Eastern/Florida time the rocket performed as planned with 60 new Starlink satellites deployed and a successful return to the floating barge for the Falcon 9 booster.
The launch takes the number of Starlinks placed into orbit at 1205 although a few have failed or been decommissioned after launch.
There are likely to be another two sets of Starlinks launched during March.