CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — For the second day in a row, SpaceX successfully launched a Starlink mission Thursday night.

The Falcon 9 rocket sent up the Starlink 6-52 mission from Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, stated SpaceX.

The launch window opened at 6:40 p.m. ET, and the launch was on time. 

The 45th Weather Squadron gave a 90% chance of good liftoff conditions, with the only concerns being the thick cloud layers rule.

Going to low-Earth orbit

Before this launch, SpaceX’s first-stage booster B1080 has only a half-dozen missions to its name:

• ESA’s Euclid telescope
• Ax-2 crew mission
• Starlink 6-11 mission
• Starlink 6-24 mission
• Ax-3 crew mission
• CRS-30 mission

After the first-stage separation, the booster landed in the Atlantic Ocean on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

About the mission

The 23 satellites from the Starlink company, owned by SpaceX, will be heading to low-Earth orbit to join the thousands already there.

Dr. Jonathan McDowell, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been recording Starlink satellites.

Before this launch, McDowell recorded the following:

• 5,829 are in orbit
• 5,206 are in operational orbit