SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites from Florida, lands rocket at sea

SpaceX launched another batch of its Starlink broadband satellites to orbit early this morning (Oct. 7).

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 Starlink satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today at 2:46 a.m. EDT (0646 GMT).

The rocket’s first stage came back to Earth as planned about 8.5 minutes later, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas.”

It was the eighth launch and landing for this particular booster, which is designated B1090.

The Falcon 9’s upper stage continued hauling the Starlink satellites toward low Earth orbit (LEO), where they’re scheduled to be deployed about 64 minutes after liftoff.

Today’s launch was the 126th flight of the year for the workhorse Falcon 9, and the 130th liftoff overall for SpaceX.

The other four were suborbital test flights of the Starship megarocket, which the company is developing to help humanity settle Mars. Starship’s fifth test launch of the year is coming up soon — it’s scheduled for Oct. 13.