SpaceX launches 40 more Internet satellites for competitor

March 9 (UPI) -- SpaceX launched 40 more high-speed Internet satellites Thursday afternoon for competitor OneWeb.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the satellites lifted off as scheduled at 2:13 p.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Following the launch, OneWeb hopes to have 578 of its 648 planned satellites in orbit.

The Falcon 9's booster stage returned to Earth on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral 7 minutes and 50 seconds after liftoff.

Even though the two companies are competitors, SpaceX agreed to launch satellites for OneWeb after the British company broke ties with Russia in March 2022. Russian Soyuz rockets already had launched 13 batches of OneWeb satellites, beginning in 2019.

OneWeb satellites -- each about the size of a washing machine and weighing 330 pounds -- are built at NASA's Kennedy Space Center through a joint venture with France's Airbus.

SpaceX previously carried 40 satellites for OneWeb in December.

Thursday's launch was SpaceX's 16th orbital launch of 2023, with one occurring about every four days.