SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites following rare network outage

SpaceX successfully launched 28 additional Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit early July 26, just days after a rare network outage disrupted internet services for users around the world.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 5:01 a.m. EDT from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The mission marked the 22nd flight of the rocket’s first-stage booster, which had previously supported the Crew-6 mission and 17 other Starlink deployments, UPI writes. 

Roughly eight minutes after liftoff, the booster executed a successful landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This marked the 119th landing on that particular droneship and the 480th booster recovery by SpaceX across both Florida and California.

According to Spaceflight Now, this was the company’s 91st Falcon 9 mission of the year.

The launch comes shortly after a temporary but widespread disruption to Starlink's internet service on July 24. The outage began around 4:00 p.m. EDT and lasted approximately four hours. Starlink engineering vice president Michael Nicholls attributed the issue to “failure of key internal software services that operate the core network.”

“We apologize for the temporary disruption in our service,” Nicholls said in a post on X. “We are deeply committed to providing a highly reliable network, and will fully root cause this issue and ensure it does not occur again.”

Service was largely restored within two and a half hours, with full functionality returning about an hour later.

There are now more than 8,000 Starlink satellites in orbit, according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell, supporting a growing global user base of more than 6 million customers. Of those, over 2 million are located in the United States. Starlink first launched commercially in 2021.

SpaceX’s next Starlink launch is scheduled for 8:55 p.m. PDT on July 26 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, where another 24 satellites are expected to be deployed.

By Sabina Mammadli