Falcon 9

Live coverage: SpaceX launches first mission of 2022

SpaceX’s first launch of 2022 took off Thursday afternoon, when a Falcon 9 rocket carried 49 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit. Launch from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center occurred at 4:49 p.m. EST (2149 GMT), and the Falcon 9 tracked southeast from Florida’s Space Coast just north of the Bahamas, rather than the more typical northeasterly route to orbit.

Falcon 9

SpaceX’s first launch of 2022 will deploy more Starlink internet satellites

SpaceX plans to kick off its 2022 launch schedule with a Falcon 9 rocket flight Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with the company’s next group of Starlink internet satellites. In a change from previous Starlink missions, the Falcon 9 rocket will fly southeast from the coast of Florida on a course just north of the Bahamas to place the new batch of internet satellites into low Earth orbit a few hundred miles above Earth.