SpaceX launched its 50th Falcon 9 rocket of the year from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday, carrying another batch of satellites for its Starlink internet service.
Liftoff of the Starlink 17-16 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East occurred under cloudy skies at 7:37 a.m. PDT (10:37 a.m. EDT / 14:37 UTC). The rocket carrying 25 of SpaceX’s Starlink V2 Mini broadband internet satellites took a southerly trajectory on departure from the central California coast.
SpaceX used first stage booster B1088 for this mission. It was making its 15th flight following the launches of the NROL-126, Transporter-12, SPHEREx and NROL-57 missions, plus 10 previous batches of Starlink satellites.
Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1088 made an autonomous landing on the SpaceX drone ship, Of Course I Still Love You. It was the 193rd landing on this vessel and the 603rd booster landing to date.
SpaceX confirmed a successful deployment of the 25 Starlink satellites from the second stage a little over an hour into flight.