**SpaceX Launches Two Falcon 9 Rockets in One Night, Deploys 58 Starlink Satellites**
SpaceX achieved an impressive milestone overnight on Friday (Nov. 14), successfully launching two Falcon 9 rockets less than four hours apart from Florida’s Space Coast.
The action began at 10:08 p.m. EST on Friday (0308 GMT Saturday, Nov. 15), when a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites lifted off from the historic Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
Everything went according to plan on this mission. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster landed smoothly in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” just 8.5 minutes after liftoff. Approximately 56 minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage deployed all 29 Starlink satellites successfully into low Earth orbit (LEO).
But the night was far from over for SpaceX. At 1:44 a.m. EST (0644 GMT) on Saturday, another Falcon 9 launched a further 29 Starlink satellites. This time, the launch was from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, located next to KSC. The first stage of this rocket also made a flawless landing in the Atlantic, touching down on the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions.” If all proceeds as planned, the 29 satellites from this launch will be deployed into LEO about 65 minutes after liftoff.
These two back-to-back launches mark the 145th and 146th Falcon 9 missions of the year for SpaceX. Remarkably, more than 100 of these flights in 2024 have been dedicated to building out the Starlink megaconstellation—the largest satellite network ever assembled.
There are now more than 8,900 operational Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit, with that number continuing to grow rapidly thanks to SpaceX’s frequent launches.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacex-launches-2-rockets-less-than-4-hours-apart-from-floridas-space-coast
