Drone’s view of Sunday’s SpaceX rocket landing

The addition of these latest satellites will boost the growing constellation to nearly 5,900. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 happened at 6:08 p.m. EDT (2208 UTC).

China led the world with 34 orbital launch attempts in 2019 — including two failures — followed by 22 flights from Russian-operated launch pads and 21 satellite delivery missions originating from U.S. spaceports, all of which were successful.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday from Cape Canaveral with 143 small satellites, a record number of spacecraft on a single mission, giving a boost to startup space companies and stressing the U.S. military’s tracking network charged with sorting out the locations of all objects in orbit.