On April 7 at 17:34 UTC SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Booster 1058 took another sixty Starlink satellites to orbit for the Starlink L-23 mission. This marks 1,383 Starlink version 1.0 satellites launched, so there are just 57 satellites — or one launch– until the first phase of the Starlink constellation is complete.

The last several launches had successful landings. Unfortunately, the video feed on the ship often cuts out which means no live video of the landings. This time, however, viewers were treated to video from both the droneship and the booster throughout the landing. The camera feed on the droneship was briefly interrupted by the usual rocket plume interference which resulted in an odd side-by-side image showing the booster on one side of the screen while the other side was just an empty barge because the video feed was lagging.

For those of you keeping score at home: this was the seventh mission for this particular booster, and both of the fairings were reused. One of the fairing halves was on its fourth flight while the other was on its second flight.

Booster 1058 successfully landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You. Only one fairing half was recovered by SpaceX’s new recovery ship, the Shiela Bordelon. This was the seventeenth fairing half SpaceX has successfully recovered.

As of press time, both GO MS Chief and GO MS Tree had their fairing-catcher nets removed and were heading back to their owners in Louisiana. Together, they have successfully caught nine fairing halves out of eighteen catch attempts.

More Information

SpaceX mission page (archive)

Launch video