by SpaceX hit a St. Patrick’s Day doubleheader, with two orbital missions on Friday (March 17).
The show began at 3:26 p.m. EDT (1926 GMT), when SpaceX launched 52 of its Starlink Internet satellites into orbit at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Then, at 7:38 PM EDT (2338 GMT), a Falcon 9 carrying the SES-18 and SES-19 telecommunications satellites lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Both missions went according to plan: the Starlink satellites were deployed to low Earth orbit (LEO) on schedule, and the Falcon 9 successfully delivered SES-18 and SES-19 to geosynchronous orbit.
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Both Falcon 9 first stages also returned safely to Earth, landing at sea on SpaceX droneships less than nine minutes after launch.
It was the eighth launch and landing for the Starlink Falcon 9 launch and the sixth for the rocket that lifted SES-18 and SES-19, according to SpaceX.
The 52 Starlink satellites join more than 3,700 other spacecraft (opens in new tab) in SpaceX’s massive broadband constellation, which will continue to grow well into the future: Elon Musk’s company has approval to deploy 12,000 Starlink satellites in LEO, and has applied for permission to deploy an additional 30,000.
SES-18 and SES-19 moved further away. The duo is heading for geostationary orbit, about 22,200 miles (35,700 kilometers) above our planet. From there, they provide digital broadcast coverage to North America, helping Luxembourg-based SES roll out 5G services in the United States, according to EverydayAstronaut.com (opens in new tab).
Friday’s launches were already the 18th and 19th of the year for SpaceX. And the launches will keep coming: Musk said last summer that SpaceX could launch up to 100 orbital missions in 2023.
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside (opens in new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
