Another 56 Starlinks launched
May 15, 2023
By Chris Forrester
May 14th saw an additional 56 Starlink broadband satellites launched. The launch was followed by a successful landing of the Falcon 9 booster stage on the ‘Just Read The Instructions’ floating drone ship downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.
The launch marked the 11th launch and landing for this particular Falcon 9 first stage booster, SpaceX said. Previous launches for the booster included CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat Hotbird 13G, mPower-a, and four Starlink missions.
This Starlink mission (Group 5-9) marks the 81st operation Starlink mission, which boosts the total number of Starlink satellites launched to more than 4,440. The total working in orbit is 4,090 with another 300 ascending towards their operational orbits.
The mission was also the fourth Falcon 9 to be launched in 14 days.