When the countdown hit zero last Friday and the engines powering a previously flown Falcon 9 first stage roared to life for takeoff, the four astronauts strapped into a SpaceX Crew Dragon some 21 stories up started laughing.
SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from California on Friday. Liftoff from pad 4E occurred Friday at 10:14 p.m. PST (1:14 a.m. EST, 0614 UTC on Saturday).
SpaceX successfully launched 60 more Starlink internet satellites Monday night from Cape Canaveral, but lost the Falcon 9 rocket’s reusable first stage booster during a landing attempt on a drone ship parked in the Atlantic Ocean.