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Falcon 9 took off from Launch Pad 39 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 6 a.m., SpaceX said on Twitter.
The mission-supporting first-stage thruster completed eight flights prior to this launch.
“The first stage of the Falcon 9 landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You, completing the ninth flight of this booster,” SpaceX tweeted.
The Falcon 9 is a two-stage rocket, which is 70 meters or 229 feet high, according to information provided during the broadcast of the launch. It is described by SpaceX as the “first orbital-class rocket capable of reflecting itself”.
The 60 Starlink satellites were deployed about an hour after the rocket launched.
Starlink is a satellite internet constellation intended to cover the planet with high-speed broadband, and often touted as a way to potentially bring connectivity to the billions of people who still lack reliable internet access.
The idea requires swarms of satellites operating in low Earth orbit – about 340 miles high, in SpaceX’s case – to provide continuous coverage.
About 1,000 Starlink satellites have been deployed and SpaceX plans to expand Starlink to include more than 40,000 satellites. This is five times the total number of satellites launched by humans since the dawn of spaceflight.
SpaceX now owns about a third of all active satellites in space.
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