A single Falcon 9 rocket is about to fly for the third time.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch Spaceflight’s SSO-A rideshare mission from Southern California at 1:31 p.m. EST. The launch was delayed from November 28 due to strong high-altitude winds.

On Monday, SpaceX will launch 64 small satellites at once from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California using a Falcon 9 rocket that the company has already flown twice before. It is a groundbreaking launch for SpaceX in numerous ways. Not only this is the first time the company will fly a rocket for a third time, but this will be the largest number of spacecraft that has ever taken off on a single flight.

Elon Musk has long promised a constellation of thousands of satellites, dubbed Starlink, which he hopes will one day handle half of all internet traffic. In addition, Starlink will earn him billions in access fees as it is one of the ways Musk hopes to fund his future Mars adventures. According to SpaceX, the two demonstration satellites it built and launched earlier this year, already have proven that internet from space can be as fast as the conventional from cables on Earth.

According to The Verge.

Comments closed.