SpaceX’s 34th dedicated Starlink launch, the Starlink 6-58 mission, was launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at 8:53 PM EDT (00:53 UTC) on Saturday. The Falcon 9 first stage, identified as B1073 and on its 15th mission, was responsible for the launch. This first stage has previously supported major missions such as ispace’s HAKUTO-R lunar lander launch and SpaceX’s CRS-27 commercial resupply mission.
Following liftoff, B1073 successfully landed on SpaceX’s floating platform, called ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’, eight minutes later. The launch took place during a weekend of intense solar activity, with the largest geomagnetic storm in the last 20 years causing fans to witness auroras and pink skies in Italy. Elon Musk himself highlighted the exceptional nature of this launch, stating that SpaceX was closely monitoring the impact of the solar storms on the Starlink constellation. Musk emphasized the relevance of these dynamics in outer space, revealing that the network actually suffered from degraded service.
SpaceX satellites have now reached an extraordinary number of 5999 devices with the addition of 23 units during this latest launch. Various links to profiles and websites have been included in the content which appear to be unrelated to the topic of the Starlink 6-58 mission.
