Starlink adds another 45 Starlinks
October 31, 2023
By Chris Forrester
A successful SpaceX flight on October 29th from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California added 22 Starlink satellites. Another flight was scheduled for October 29th from Florida but that was aborted just seconds ahead of launch and rescheduled for October 30th.
That happened on time (7.20pm Florida time) and added 23 additional satellites making the total for the weekend of 45.
The two launches take the overall number of Starlink satellites launched to an impressive 5,376, and despite some failures there are now some 4,982 which are ‘working’ although there a few hundred still ascending and moving to their targeted orbits, according to astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell.
In the April-June period, SpaceX placed a total of 648 spacecraft (out of a global total of 797) into orbit on 22 launches. Not all were Starlinks, but most (67 per cent) were for ‘Communications’ according to data from Bryce Tech.