Following its recent success with the launch of Falcon 9, SpaceX launched dozens more of its Starlink broadband internet satellites, plus three piggyback satellites for Planet — marking the first of the company’s in-house rideshare deliveries to orbit on Saturday. This has been termed a historic feat, since it has become the first non-governmental organisation to have ever accomplished this.
The program was to be launched scheduled for June 12 at 5:12am ET but was pushed back was rescheduled to Saturday, although NASA and SpaceX have failed to reveal the reason behind this.
The Nasa Kennedy Space Center website states: “This will be the 9th mission in support of the constellation of networked satellites known as Starlink. The goal of Starlink is to create a network that will help provide internet services to those who are not yet connected, and to provide reliable and affordable internet across the globe.”
Starlink is a controversial scheme that aims to beam Wi-Fi to people from space using a “mega constellation” of thousands of satellites. Controversial because these satellites will be placed in lower earth orbit making it look brighter than stars thus acting as a hindrance to stargazers and astronomers. This is the brainchild of Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, whose company has launched more than 400 satellites ever since its conception.