SpaceX rocket launches from Vandenberg with 52 Starlink satellites aboard
A Falcon 9 rocket and dozens of satellites rumbled away from Vandenberg Space Force Base, providing an early morning wakeup alarm for holiday shoppers on a clear but especially chilly Saturday morning.
Lifttoff of Space Exploration Technologies rocket from Space Launch Complex-4 on South Base occurred at 4:21 a.m. The firm announced a new launch time for the 230-foot-tall on Friday afternoon after initially saying it would blast off three hours earlier.
Riding aboard the Falcon rocket were the West Coast’s second set of Starlink satellites, with the 52 spacecraft joining of hundreds of others already in orbit.
Spacecraft separation started more than 15 minutes after liftoff with the satellite deployment occurring successfully, according to SpaceX.
Starlink, also owned by SpaceX, was developed to provide space-based internet service across the globe including remote areas by employing a constellation consisting of multiple small spacecraft.
This was the West Coast’s second Starlink mission with hundreds of others occurring from Florida, including as recently as two weeks ago.
Saturday’s delivery pushed the total number of Starlink satellites to nearly 2,000 after 34 launches, Youmei Zhou, a SpaceX propulsion engineer, said.
“Looking back, 2021 was a really exciting year for Starlink. We deployed more than 800 satellites to low-Earth orbit and connected over 100,000 customers around the globe in more than 20 countries and regions and still counting,” Zhou said.
In addition to delivering internet service to remote areas, the constellation has provided a secondary thrill. Central Coast residents looking to the dark sky have spotted Starlink satellites flying, appearing as a string of pearls.
Skywatchers hoping to catch a glimpse of a Starlink train can go to a hobbyist’s website called Find Starlink which provides details about best sighting opportunities and times for various areas.
After completing its job Saturday, the rocket’s first-stage successfully touched down on the football-field-sized droneship dubbed “Of Course I Still Love You,” parked in the Pacific Ocean south of the Central Coast.
That landing marked the 98th time SpaceX has recovered a first-stage booster after use.
The vessel recently relocated from its job of supporting East Coast missions to fulfill the same role of floating landing platform for Falcon first-stage boosters.
Names for the firm’s vessels, or automated spaceport drone ship, reportedly are rooted in a science fiction series known as Culture and written by Iain Banks, which follows the trend since the rocket’s name came from the Millennium Falcon in “Star Wars.”
Previously, a different droneship, “Just Read the Instructions,” had supported ocean landings for Falcon rocket launches from Vandenberg, but that vessel has since been repositioned to the Atlantic Ocean to support Florida launches.
Saturday’s flight marked the 11th for the booster, the first to fly that many times, according to SpaceX.
The launch also was the third from Vandenberg for the Falcon rocket since September, when another batch of Starlink satellites rode to space followed by a NASA planetary mission to an asteroid last month.
Click here to read Noozhawk’s story about the November launch of the asteroid-smashing satellite.
SpaceX planned two more launches from Florida before the end of the year including one set for 15 hours after Vandenberg’s mission Saturday.
Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.