June 18 (UPI) — SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying another 20 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit on Tuesday.
The launch took place at 8:40 PM PDT from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The batch of orbitals included a dozen bakers with Direct-to-Cell capabilities, which allow constant access to texting, calling and surfing the Internet on water, according to Starlink’s website.
Not long after launch, the first-stage separation was confirmed, with the booster, which was on its fifth flight, returning to Earth where it landed on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love you as it awaited its return to the Pacific Ocean .
The deployment of the 20 orbitals was later confirmed online by SpaceX.
The launch comes after SpaceX had to halt the launch of the SES ASRA 1P mission due to unfavorable weather at the Florida launch site.
The ASTRA 1P is a communications satellite owned by the Luxembourg-based satellite telecommunications company SES.
The mission, which has been postponed until Wednesday, is to place the satellite into geosynchronous orbit.
