Q&A with Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer at SES

Another batch of 52 Starlink satellites launched late Tuesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, on the way to join SpaceX’s fleet of more than 4,000 spacecraft beaming broadband signals around the world.

When SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket takes off with 64 small satellites — a payload cache representing 34 customers in 17 nations — it will be just the first act in a nearly five-hour sequence to deftly deploy each of the spacecraft, which range in size from a Rubik’s cube to a refrigerator.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher rocketed into orbit Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, climbing away from a hillside launch complex just after sunrise with 10 Iridium communications satellites.