On a humid Florida night, at 11:50 p.m., SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 carrying the Starlink 5-15 mission to low Earth orbit. The first stage utilized on this mission, designated B1060, completed its 16th successful flight after landing on the droneship “A Shortfall Of Gravitas” some 640 km (~398 miles) downrange.

Upon payload deployment, the 54 Starlink satellites onboard joined the already massive space internet constellation that is over 4,400 satellites strong. This was also the final launch for the version 1.5 satellites – the version 2 satellites are more powerful and, as a result, have greater broadband capacity. SpaceX currently has more than 1.5 million customers using their network. The constellation is expected to continue its rapid growth for the foreseeable future in order to reach an even larger customer base.

In the photo captured by Ethan Walsh, one can see the first-stage burn of Falcon 9 streaking into the upper right corner. Fortunately, the weather cooperated and we had an unobstructed view of the full arc. The sound from the launch was also exceptionally loud despite being many miles away!