A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the latest batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit on Sunday and successfully returned to Earth, landing on its drone ship Naturally I Still Love You in the Atlantic Ocean, the company announced.
Sunday’s mission marked a record flight and landing for this Falcon 9 booster, said SpaceX, which was part of five previous Starlink launches and the DM-1 mission for its Crew Dragon capsule.
The satellites are part of the growing Starlink constellation, which SpaceX is building to provide Internet connectivity to rural areas of Earth. The company is authorized to launch 12,000 satellites as part of the project and has more than 1,000 in orbit to date.
Starlink also has about 10,000 users in the beta program it launched last year. The Starlink kit, which comes with a router and antenna, costs $ 499, with a monthly subscription of $ 99 for internet speeds between 70 and 130 Mbps. The company opened pre-orders for Starlink in the US, Canada and UK last month, with a down payment of $ 99.
Sunday’s launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center was the second in recent days for SpaceX, which sent another of its Falcon 9 rockets up from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday. That launch also put 60 satellites into orbit. Starlink’s next launch is tentatively scheduled for March 21, from Cape Canaveral.