On Friday (25th), SpaceX will launch 50 additional satellites for its Starlink broadband constellation. Anyone interested can follow everything in real time: from the take-off of the Falcon 9 rocket to the landing of the first stage.

The launch is scheduled for 2:12 p.m. (GMT), from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and begins broadcasting 15 minutes earlier, on SpaceX and on YouTube.

According to Space.com, about nine minutes after launch, the first stage of Falcon 9 will return to Earth for a vertical landing on the drone. »Of course I still love you(“OCISLY”), which has been laid hundreds of miles off the California coast since arriving from Long Beach, Florida.

The Falcon 9 rocket will be used for the fourth time

This will be the fourth landing of this booster, which helped launch Michael Freilich’s Sentinel-6 Earth observation satellite for NASA and the European Organization for the Exploration of Meteorological Satellites in November 2020. It also participated in the deployment of 60 Starlink satellites in May 2021 and beyond. NASA’s DART mission in November.

As you know, redirection is a priority for SpaceX and for Elon Musk, its founder and CEO. And he, who intends to help humanity colonize Mars, believes that fully and quickly reusable rockets are the main resource needed to make this happen.

Today’s launch is SpaceX’s third February Starlink mission, after launching 49 satellites on 3 and 46 last Monday (21). This last mission marked the 100th landing of a Falcon 9 first stage during an orbital flight.

SpaceX changes the altitude of the home location of Starlink satellites for security reasons

Importantly, the mission earlier this month was also great, but for a different reason: Shortly after liftoff, a solar flare caused a geomagnetic storm on Earth, thickening our atmosphere enough to eject most of the satellites that Newly launched by drag. According to SpaceX, Starlink satellites will be positioned at slightly higher starting altitudes in the future to protect against such storms.

To date, SpaceX has launched more than 2,000 Starlink satellites, with many already scheduled, as the company has cleared 12,000 broadband spacecraft and requested permission to launch as many as 30,000 more.

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