On the 10th of July 2023, SpaceX launched 22 'V2 Mini' Starlink satellites atop of a Falcon 9 rocket using Booster 1058, also called B1058, which launched for the sixteenth time and successfully landed on their droneship called 'Just Read The Instructions' off of the eastern coast of the United States. SpaceX is currently preparing Booster 1060, also called B1060, for its sixteenth flight with a mission to launch 54 Starlink V1.5 satellites and attempt to land on their droneship 'A Shortfall of Gravitas' on the 16th of July 2023. Both of these missions are for SpaceX's growing internet satellite constellation called Starlink.
Record-setting history of Booster 1058
SpaceX has been flying Booster 1058 since its first mission for Dragon Demo-2, the first SpaceX mission to fly astronauts to space and the International Space Station, on the 30th of May 2020. Booster 1058 has now launched and landed sixteen times over the course of three years, its flown missions so far are; Dragon Demo-2, ANASIS-II, Starlink v1.0 L12, CRS-21, Transporter-1, Starlink v1.0 L20, Starlink v1.0 L23, Starlink v1.0 L26, Starlink Group 4-1, Transporter-3, Starlink Group 4-8, Starlink Group 4-17, Starlink Group 4-21, Starlink Group 4-2 and Bluewalker 3, Starlink Group 4-37, and finally Starlink Group 6-5.
What is Starlink?
Starlink is a space-based satellite internet constellation owned and operated by SpaceX. All of SpaceX's Starlink satellites operate in low Earth orbit providing internet to the ground below to customers of the service. SpaceX currently has over four thousand Starlink satellites in orbit with twelve thousand planned to be deployed with a possible increase to forty-tw0 thousand satellites. SpaceX is currently expecting to generate $30 billion in revenue by 2025 from its Starlink internet service. As of May 2023, Starlink currently has 1.5 million subscribers to the service.