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A SpaceX rocket blasted from Florida early Saturday just after three Russian cosmonauts, wearing flight suits with a timely color scheme, arrived at the International Space Station.
The 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 at 12:42 a.m. ET, then landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Saturday’s launch was the booster’s 12th mission to date, making it the new leader of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 fleet.
An hour after liftoff, all 53 Starlink internet satellites packed into the payload fairing were successfully deployed. SpaceX founder Elon Musk, confirming mission success on Twitter, said it also marked the company’s heaviest payload to date at nearly 36,000 pounds.
SpaceX has launched 42 dedicated missions for the Starlink internet constellation serving more than 250,000 users around the world. That includes the government of Ukraine, which so far has received two shipments of terminals – essentially small satellite dishes with built-in WiFi routers – directly from SpaceX to help in the fight against Russia.
Cosmonauts hint support for Ukraine
Less than a day earlier on Friday, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Korsakov, and Denis Matveyev launched from Kazakhstan in a Soyuz spacecraft and arrived at the ISS.
When they exited Soyuz and joined the crew, their yellow-and-blue flight suits – the same colors as the Ukrainian flag – quickly stole the show. No other cosmonauts or astronauts have worn such a bright color scheme; blue is usually preferred.
After friendly hugs with their American, European, and Russian colleagues already on the ISS, the trio made time for a Russian-language news conference. Soyuz commander Artemyev took a question on the suits and essentially said to read between the lines.
“Each crew chooses their own suits and overalls so that everyone is not the same,” he said. “There are a lot of fabrics accumulated in yellow and it was necessary to start using them.”
With the new Russian arrivals, the ISS’ crew now stands at 10. NASA’s Mark Vande Hei will use Friday’s capsule to return to Earth on March 30 with cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov.
The Space Coast, meanwhile, is expected to take a break from launches until early next month. Barring last-minute schedule changes, SpaceX is set to fly from Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A no earlier than Sunday, April 3, with four private astronauts. The mission known as Axiom-1 will take the crew to the International Space Station for a roughly 10-day stay.
For the latest, visit floridatoday.com/launchschedule.
Contact Emre Kelly at [email protected] or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @EmreKelly.
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