SpaceX notched a big milestone with a launch of its Starlink internet satellites on Wednesday night (Dec. 4).
A Falcon 9 rocket launched 20 Starlink spacecraft from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Wednesday at 10:05 p.m. EST (7:05 p.m. local California time; 0305 GMT on Dec. 5) and deployed them in low Earth orbit (LEO) about 61 minutes later as planned.
Thirteen of the newly launched satellites are capable of beaming service directly to satellites, rounding out the first shell of this specialized network.
"The first Starlink satellite direct-to-cell phone constellation is now complete," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X early on Thursday morning (Dec. 5). "This will enable unmodified cellphones to have internet connectivity in remote areas. Bandwidth per beam is only ~10Mb, but future constellations will be much more capable."
