SpaceX Falcon 9 launches 23 Starlink satellites to orbit

SpaceX on Sunday, September 3, launched a new batch of Starlink internet satellites to low-Earth orbit. The company's Falcon 9 rocket with 23 satellites lifted off at 10:47 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This was the 10th flight for the rocket's first stage booster supporting today's mission, which previously supported SES-22, ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1, Hispasat Amazonas Nexus mission, CRS-27, and five Starlink missions.

Following stage separation, the first stage returned to Earth and landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship pic.twitter.com/oLysbrAl9e

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 4, 2023

Meanwhile, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft with Crew-6 members aboard is set to splashdown off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida at 12:17 a.m. ET on Monday, September 4. 

Crew-6 flew to the space station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 2, 2023. The four-member crew including NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, Rocosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, are returning home after a nearly six-month stay at the International Space Station.

The Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, undocked from the forward-facing port of the Space Station’s Harmony module at 7:05 a.m. EDT.

NASA and SpaceX are providing live coverage of the crew's return to Earth.

Watch Dragon and Crew-6 return to return to Earth https://t.co/wlMNYj5tjh

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 4, 2023