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ORLANDO, Fla., March 3 (UPI) -- SpaceX launched another cluster of 47 of its own Starlink Internet communications satellites from Florida on Thursday, as company founder and CEO Elon Musk has confirmed Starlink use by the government of Ukraine during the conflict with Russia. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off as planned into a mostly sunny, blue sky at 9:25 a.m. EST from Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center.
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At 40 seconds into flight, SpaceX engineer Siva Baradvaj confirmed during a live broadcast "successful liftoff of the rocket carrying 47 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit."
SpaceX has launched almost 2,200 Starlink satellites since May 2019, but just around 1,555 are operational, according to data published by Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who tracks the satellites.
Thursday's launch is the second Starlink mission since SpaceX lost about 40 of the satellites during a solar storm that increased air drag on them, preventing the spacecraft from reaching orbit. They burned up safely as they re-entered the atmosphere.
The reusable first-stage booster for the rocket flew Thursday for the 11th time, previously launching seven Starlink missions and three additional satellite customer missions.
The company successfully recovered the booster again Thursday on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, Just Read the Instructions.
SpaceX expected to confirm the deployment of the satellites around an hour after launch on its social media channels.
