SpaceX launches BlueBird satellites from Florida
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - SpaceX launched three large satellites from Cape Canaveral early Wednesday.
The company's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station around 2:39 a.m. for the BlueBird 8-10 mission.
The rocket delivered three AST SpaceMobile BlueBird satellites—BlueBird 8, BlueBird 9 and BlueBird 10—into orbit.
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Shortly after liftoff, the rocket's first stage booster landed on the drone ship named A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
The mission comes about two months after the failed Bluebird 7 mission. In April, Blue Origin launched the satellite from Florida on its New Glenn rocket. But due to an anomaly it failed to deploy the satellite to the correct orbit, and the satellite was lost.
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What are the BlueBird satellites?
The three BlueBird satellites are part of AST SpaceMobile's growing constellation.
The satellites, which are in low Earth orbit, provide broadband internet service to smartphones.
"Each BlueBird satellite launched expands our ability to support seamless space-based broadband mobile connectivity directly to everyday smartphones," AST SpaceMobile president Scott Wisniewski said in a statement. "Our next-generation BlueBird satellites, the largest phase-arrays ever deployed in low Earth orbit, together with our expanding manufacturing capabilities, position AST SpaceMobile to continue scaling toward continuous global space-based cellular broadband coverage supported by a diversified launch strategy."
The Source: This story was written with information released by SpaceX and AST SpaceMobile.