Russia shot down an old Soviet-era military spacecraft Monday in a test of an anti-satellite weapon, scattering hundreds of thousands of debris fragments that will remain in orbit for years or decades, U.S. government officials said. The crew on the International Space Station sheltered in their lifeboats Monday as the complex flew through the debris field.
SpaceX launched a reusable Falcon 9 booster on its ninth flight Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on a mission to deploy 53 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit. The mission, which was delayed from Friday due to weather, lifted off at 7:19 a.m. EST (1219 GMT), and was the first flight for SpaceX’s Starlink network to launch from Florida in nearly six months.
Just ten hours after launching a crew capsule from a nearby pad, SpaceX ignited the main engines on a reused Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Thursday morning for a brief test-firing ahead of a planned liftoff Friday to begin a new phase of deploying the company’s Starlink satellite internet network.
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