SpaceX marked St. Patrick’s Day with another successful Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The Starlink 10-46 mission saw the deployment of 29 new Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites, further expanding the vast low Earth orbit constellation.
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 occurred precisely at 9:27 a.m. EDT (1327 UTC), with the rocket charting a north-easterly course immediately after departing the launchpad.
Despite a 75 percent favorable weather forecast, the 45th Weather Squadron had monitored potential challenges, including strong liftoff winds and the presence of cumulus clouds, alongside a moderate risk assessment for the booster’s recovery zone.
This particular mission was carried out using Falcon 9 first stage booster B1090, which completed its eleventh journey into space. Its previous assignments included significant missions such as Crew-10, Bandwagon-3, and CRS-33.
Approximately eight and a half minutes after its launch, booster B1090 executed a flawless landing on the drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. This achievement represented the 147th successful landing on this specific vessel and marked SpaceX’s 587th booster recovery to date.
