A SpaceX rocket carried 53 satellites for the Starlink internet constellation into orbit Friday after blasting off from California.
The Falcon 9 booster lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:07 p.m., and minutes later the first stage landed on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean while the second stage continued toward low Earth orbit.
SpaceX later tweeted that the satellites were successfully deployed.
Starlink is a space-based system that SpaceX has been building for years to bring internet access to underserved areas of the world.
Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has hundreds of Starlink satellites orbiting Earth at an altitude of 340 miles (550 kilometers).
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This video image provided by SpaceX, a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission to launch 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E), takes off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Friday, May 13, 2022. Credit: SpaceX via AP
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This video image provided by SpaceX shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission to launch 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E), takes off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Friday, May 13, 2022. Credit: SpaceX via AP
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This video image provided by SpaceX shows a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission to launch 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E), takes off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Friday, May 13, 2022. Credit: SpaceX via AP
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SpaceX launches Starlink satellites from California (2022, May 14)
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