{"id":14922,"date":"2025-07-23T02:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T02:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/14922\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T02:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T02:42:08","slug":"spacex-launches-2-powerful-internet-satellites-high-above-earth-lands-rocket-on-ship-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/14922\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches 2 powerful internet satellites high above Earth, lands rocket on ship at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched two powerful communications satellites today (July 22), then aced its landing on a ship at sea.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9<\/a> lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station<\/a> today at 5:12 p.m. EDT (2112 GMT), carrying SES’ O3b mPOWER 9 and 10 satellites toward medium Earth orbit (MEO), about 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) above our planet.<\/p>\n

That was a day later than originally planned. SpaceX tried to launch the mission Monday (July 21) but aborted the try<\/a> 11 seconds before liftoff, for reasons that the company did not immediately explain.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches two of SES’ O3b mPOWER communications satellites from Florida on July 22, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9’s first stage came back to Earth as planned today roughly 8.5 minutes after launch, touching down on the SpaceX<\/a> droneship “Just Read the Instructions,” which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

According to a SpaceX mission description,<\/a> it was the sixth launch and landing for this particular booster, which is designated B1090.<\/p>\n

If all goes according to plan today, the Falcon 9’s upper stage will continue carrying the two mPOWER satellites to MEO, deploying them there across a seven-minute stretch about two hours after liftoff.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9’s first stage rests on the deck of a drone ship shortly after launching two of SES’ O3b mPOWER communications satellites from Florida on July 22, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n

Previous Booster 1090 missions:<\/p>\n

Luxembourg-based SES’s mPOWER constellation currently consists of eight high-throughput satellites, which reached orbit on four Falcon 9 launches from December 2022 to December 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

mPOWER is operational now, providing internet service to customers around the world. But the constellation will continue growing, to a total of 13 satellites. Each is built by Boeing and weighs about 3,750 pounds<\/a> (1,700 kilograms).<\/p>\n

“The remaining three O3b mPOWER satellites are currently being manufactured and are scheduled for launch over the next 12 months,” SES representatives wrote in a brief update<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Today’s launch was the 89th Falcon mission of the year already. SpaceX also has three other liftoffs under its belt this year \u2014 test flights of its Starship<\/a> megarocket, which took place in January, March and May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched two powerful communications satellites today (July 22), then aced its landing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-14922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}