SpaceX launches 20 Starlink internet satellites from California (photos)

SpaceX launched 20 more of its Starlink broadband satellites from California early Wednesday morning (September 25), including 13 with direct-to-cell capability.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 20 Starlink spacecraft launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base on California's central coast at 3:01 a.m. EDT (7:01 a.m. GMT; 9:01 p.m. California time on Sept. 24) on Wednesday.

The first stage of the Falcon 9 returned to Earth as planned 8.5 minutes after launch and landed on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean.

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rests on the deck of a ship at sea after landing on September 25, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX)

According to a mission description from SpaceX, it was the tenth launch and landing of this particular booster.

Meanwhile, the Falcon 9 upper stage continued its journey into low Earth orbit, where it is scheduled to deploy the 20 satellites 60 minutes after launch. The new arrivals will join the Starlink mega-constellation, which consists of more than 6,300 active spacecraft.

Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky

The Starlink launch was part of what is normally a busy week for SpaceX. Elon Musk's company plans to launch the Crew-9 astronaut mission for NASA to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday (Sept. 28), sending it aloft on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Crew-9 is not a typical ISS astronaut mission. It will launch with two crew members instead of the usual four, as it will bring back to Earth two people already living on the ISS – NASA's Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who arrived in June aboard Boeing's Starliner capsule.

Starliner had problems with its engines on the way to the ISS, so NASA decided to bring the spacecraft home unmanned. Williams and Wilmore will return home with the two Crew 9 astronauts – Nick Hague of NASA and Aleksandr Gorbunov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos – aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule “Freedom” in February 2025.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 12:30 a.m. ET on Sept. 24 with news of the rocket's successful launch and landing.

SpaceX launches 20 Starlink internet satellites from California (photos)

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