Last night at 9:09 p.m. PT (04:09 UTC), SpaceX successfully launched 15 V2 mini Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.
Following a last-second aborted launch attempt the previous night, SpaceX teams performed checkouts of the Falcon 9 and determined one other try and launch the next-gen satellites was good to go. In the course of the previous attempt, the launch was held early within the countdown attributable to a “perceived leak” within the second stage, then eventually, the automated abort at T-minus 5 seconds.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/CzetVZFGbv
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 20, 2023
The views on the webcast started off with nothing but fog, SpaceX even went so far as so as to add a top level view of the Falcon 9 to the screen so viewers could visualize the rocket through the thick Vandenberg fog. The countdown proceeded normally, and the Falcon 9 took off to the South, parallelling the California coastline.
Following a two-and-a-half-minute burn of the Falcon 9 first stage, the engines shut down, and the primary and second stages separated. Falcon 9 booster 1071 then landed on the droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ nine-and-a-half-minutes after launch, marking its tenth successful mission.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship pic.twitter.com/cIwzaZC6VU
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 20, 2023
While the primary stage was returning to Earth, the second stage was climbing to the correct altitude, which brought it back into the daylight and lit up the exhaust plume creating the ‘twilight effect’ which prompted people in Southern California and whilst far as Arizona to look up and watch because the rocket soared through the skies.
The 15 V2 mini Starlinks then separated roughly quarter-hour after launch. That now brings the whole of Starlink satellites launched to 4,837.
These satellites will now undergo checkouts as they rise to their operational orbits.
More photos from last night’s Falcon 9 launch of 15 @Starlink satellites to orbit pic.twitter.com/qBIOcGtn9n
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 20, 2023