At 5:42 US Eastern time on May 6, SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 53 "star chain" satellites at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, giving birth to SpaceX's third Falcon 9 rocket with one arrow and 12 flights. This mission is the 12th flight and landing of the Falcon 9 primary booster. More than eight minutes after the launch, the first stage booster landed at sea.
launch
Prior to this, the first stage booster has carried out the demo-2 mission of the first manned test flight of the dragon flying ship, the Korean military communication satellite anasis-ii mission, and the cargo supply mission crs-21 of the international space station; One arrow 143 satellites completed SpaceX's first exclusive single launch mission transporter-1, one arrow 105 satellites completed SpaceX's third exclusive single launch mission transporter-3, and launched six "star chain" missions.
Engine recovery
This launch is the 44th batch of "star chain" satellites specially deployed by SpaceX since the first batch of 60 "star chain" satellites were launched in May 2019, and it is also the 11th batch of "star chain" satellites specially deployed this year. Last year, SpaceX set a record of 31 Falcon 9 rockets launched in the whole year, of which 17 were launched by specially deploying the "star chain" satellite network.
Taking into account the "star chain" satellites carried by the previous "carpool", SpaceX has launched 2492 "star chain" satellites so far. Taking into account the two test satellites microsat-2a and microsat-2b launched in February 2018, SpaceX launched 2494 "star chain" satellites.