SpaceX added more satellites on Tuesday. Just 24 of them, technically speaking. They flew out of California into a dark sky that probably didn’t look half bad.
Tuesday, May 19. Falcon 9 lifted off at 10:46 p.m. EDT from Vandenberg. Space Launch Complex 4. East pad.
The launch itself is standard fare. The landing, slightly less so.
Booster 1103 reused. This was its second flight, its first coming home again. It touched down on the Of Course I Still Love You. A droneship sitting in the Pacific Ocean, named for obvious reasons.
The upper stage carried Group 17-42 to a preliminary orbit 8 minutes and 41 seconds later.
Deployment happened roughly 50 minutes after that.
Jonathan McDowell counts these things. His trackers say we are now just under 10,500 working units.
Is the network growing too fast? Maybe. Nobody seems to mind the speed though. The sky is getting crowded, piece by piece.
The sun goes down, the rockets go up, and the count goes higher.
