SpaceX close to 1600 launched Starlinks
May 27, 2021
By Chris Forrester
May 26th saw SpaceX launch another 60 of its Starlink satellites. This means that there are almost 1600 working Starlinks either orbiting or being moved to their target positions. In total Starlink has orbited 1737 satellites although some were test craft and others have failed and been deorbited.
The Starlink 28 flight took place at 18.59 UTC (2.59pm Florida time) from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Some 9 minutes after launch the Falcon 9 booster landed precisely on the floating barge ’Just Read The Instructions’ and will be shipped back to port for inspection and re-use.
As usual, more records were set by SpaceX: This was the 119th flight of a Falcon 9 and the 66th flight of a refurbished rocket.
The next Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for June 3rd and will carry a cargo supply mission to the International Space Station. A few days later another Falcon 9 will launch pay-radio operator SiriusXM’s SXM8 satellite into orbit.