SpaceX unveiled its new batch of satellites Thursday night (Dec. 28) from Cape Canaveral Station in Florida.
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The launch of Starlink (known as 6-36) is the 98th and final launch planned by the company for this year.
SpaceX’s nine launches in 2023 include nine Falcon 9 liftoffs, five Falcon Heavy launches and two liftoffs for the company’s Starship launch system. SpaceX conducted 61 launches in 2022 (60 for Falcon nine rockets and a single Falcon Heavy launch) and completed 31 launches. in 2021 and 26 in 2020, all of them Falcon nine rockets.
SpaceX will just miss out on closing out 2023 with 100 launches, with the next mission for the company planned for Tuesday (Jan. 2). SpaceX’s first launch of 2024 will see a further 21 Starlink spacecraft carried to low Earth orbit by a Falcon 9 rocket, which will lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
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Starlink’s launch on Dec. 28 will be the 12th flight of the first-stage booster, according to SpaceX, which has also carried the CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19 cargo ships into space, as well as seven previous Starlink missions.
As of November 2023, the Starlink megaconstellation included more than 5,200 small operational satellites offering high-speed internet in low-Earth orbit. SpaceX intends to deploy up to 12,000 satellites for Starlink, and the company expects it to be allowed to expand that number to 42,000 units.
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Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.
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