San Francisco: Tech billionaire Elon Musk-run SpaceX has made it through its second attempt to launch 46 Starlink satellites, breaking a record along the way.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, which induced a scrub at T-46 seconds on Thursday, lifted off successfully from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday, reports Space.com.
"Deployment of 46 Starlink satellites confirmed -- completing SpaceX's 32nd mission of 2022!a the agency tweeted.
Liftoff took place at 1.40 p.m. amid severely foggy conditions on the West Coast.
The launch allowed SpaceX to surpass its 31 record launches of 2021 with a 32nd record launch in 2022, and still counting. Falcon 9's first stage also completed its mission, landing atop the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship in the Pacific Ocean as planned, about 8.5 minutes after launch.
Prior to this effort, SpaceX most recently launched a set of Starlinks from Vandenberg on July 11. On that occasion, another set of 46 Starlink satellites made it to space and the rocket landed successfully upon the droneship. SpaceX has launched far more Starlink batches from the US East Coast, most recently from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida on July 17. Starlink has more than 2,800 individual Starlink satellites launched to orbit as the company seeks to build out its satellite-internet service. Group 3-2 was SpaceX's fourth Starlink launch in July alone. —IANS