SpaceX's Falcon 9 sends 52 Starlink satellites into space

Tech mogul Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent its 52 more Starlink satellites into space Wednesday followed by the safe landing of the Falcon 9 rocket on the company’s drone ship at sea in 8 minutes and 45 seconds.

The rocket carrying 52 broadband satellites lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base at 2:02am EDT and returned in a brief time to Earth after sending the satellites into the Earth’s orbit.

The rocket made its vertical touchdown on the SpaceX drone ship successfully.

The company’s official Twitter handle also updated upon the landing of the Falcon 9 on the drone ship named "Of Course, I Still Love You" stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

As per the mission description of SpaceX, it was the 14th launch and landing for this particular booster as its earlier 13 flights were Crew-1 and Crew-2, astronaut missions that the aerospace company flew to the International Space Station (ISS) for the US space agency Nasa.

In a confirmation on Twitter, SpaceX wrote that the Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued hauling the 52 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. It deployed them all about 17.5 minutes after launch as planned.

Astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell underlined that Musk’s California-based company has now launched more than 4,500 Starlink satellites, more than 4,100 of which are currently active and some of the others will be up in weeks to come.

As per the permission, the company is allowed to send 12,000 Starlink satellites to orbit, however, it has applied further for approval to launch another 30,000.

The recent satellite launch occurred some hours after the SpaceX Dragon capsule landed on Earth, which is named Freedom.

It flew the private Ax-2 astronaut mission to the space station for Houston company Axiom Space.

Freedom undocked from the ISS Tuesday morning (May 30) and splashed down off the Florida coast 12 hours later, at 11:04pm.