The mission, Starlink 8-8, will add another 13 satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities, bringing the total launched to 64. Liftoff happened at 5:58 a.m. PDT (8:58 a.m. EDT, 1258 UTC).
One week after two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut arrived at the International Space Station for a six-month stay, the three crew members they’re replacing packed up their Soyuz spacecraft for a fiery plunge back to Earth Wednesday evening to close out a 196-day mission.
The work isn’t over for NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter. Engineers hope to fly the rotorcraft four more times in the next two weeks before calling it quits on the pioneering technology experiment, which accomplished the first powered flight of an aircraft on another planet Monday.