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March 25 (UPI) -- SpaceX on Monday successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a batch of 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The craft took off as scheduled from Space Launch Complex 40 at 7:42 p.m.
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The Falcon 9's first stage landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean following the launch, SpaceX said.
The launch marked the eighth flight for the first-stage booster used in Monday's mission. It previously had been used for Crew-6, SES O3b mPOWER, USSF-124, and four earlier Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9's upper stage was scheduled to deploy the 23 Starlink satellites approximately 65 minutes after liftoff.
Some 28 other Falcon 9 missions have been carried out already this year, including one on Thursday in which a Dragon cargo capsule filled with supplies and experiments for the International Space Station was sent into orbit.
A week ago, Space X launched a similar batch of Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The constellation of more than 5,000 satellites seeks to offer high-speed, low-latency Internet worldwide.
