Sixty further satellites will be launched tonight
by Elon Musk's companyas part of his Starlink fleet.
The tech entrepreneur recently celebrated a major milestone, as SpaceX became the first private company to send humans into orbit, carrying Nasa astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS) over the weekend.
The launch was also the first time Nasa had launched astronauts from US soil in nine years.
Tonight, the space giant will launch the satellites on board a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral tonight, reports the Mirror.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre said: “SpaceX is scheduled to launch the 8th mission 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.”
During the launch, the Falcon 9 rocket will carry the Starlink satellites into orbit, before attempting to land at sea.
This is the eighth batch of Starlink satellites, bringing the total number in orbit to nearly 500.
Elon Musk hopes the satellites will bring low-cost internet to remote areas on Earth.
Starlink explained: “With performance that far surpasses that of traditional satellite internet, and a global network unbounded by ground infrastructure limitations, Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable.”
SpaceX will stream the launch live on its YouTube channel here.
Meanwhile, Brits will have several opportunities to see the Starlink satellites from the UK this week.
According to Find Starlink, the satellites will be visible from the UK at:
- 12:39am, 4 Jun 2020
- 4:04am, 4 Jun 2020
- 3:06am, 5 Jun 2020
- 12:12am, 6 Jun 2020
- 2:08am, 6 Jun 2020
