Dozens of satellites launched to space on Tuesday in SpaceX’s second in-house “ride-share” mission from Florida, bringing the total number of or

SpaceX launches a big carpool of 88 satellites to space

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2021-07-01 02:00:05

Dozens of satellites launched to space on Tuesday in SpaceX’s second in-house “ride-share” mission from Florida, bringing the total number of orbital objects carried by Elon Musk’s space company this year to nearly 900. A reused Falcon 9 rocket launched 88 satellites total for the “Transporter-2” mission, including the first five for a new Pentagon agency and dozens more for various companies, countries, and schools.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 3:31PM ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, marking the company’s 20th launch this year and the eighth flight for the rocket’s first stage booster. That booster returned to Earth about 10 minutes later at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1, a pad of concrete that hasn’t been used for rocket landings since December; Falcon 9 boosters usually land on sea-faring drone ships.

Meanwhile, the carpool of 88 satellites was pushed toward a sun-synchronous, pole-to-pole Earth orbit by Falcon 9’s second-stage booster. Thirty-six tiny satellites were mounted on a new payload adapter built by Spaceflight, a company that books space for small satellites on rockets, alongside other satellites arranged by SpaceX.

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