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The American space-technology company SpaceX conducted a dual-launch operation this week, dispatching two batches of Starlink Internet-satellites aboard two Falcon 9 rockets in the same launch window.In a statement, the company said the first Falcon 9 took off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying 29 satellites into low Earth orbit. The first-stage booster successfully landed on a SpaceX drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.Within the same launch window, a second Falcon 9 launched a further batch of 29 satellites. Its first-stage booster also achieved a successful drone-ship landing, while the upper stage deployed the satellites on schedule.These missions advance the Starlink network, a vast satellite constellation aiming to provide global Internet coverage; currently, thousands of satellites are already in orbit. SpaceX said such launches help maintain the constellation's frequent and rapid replenishment.The company described the flights as part of a "record pace" of Falcon 9 launches this year as it scales up capacity and reduces turnaround time between missions.

China launched on Sunday the Lijian-1 Y8 carrier rocket with three satellites onboard. China's news agency (Xinhua) said that the rocket blasted off at 11:33 (Beijing Time) from a commercial aerospace innovation pilot zone in northwest China and successfully sent the satellites into the planned orbit. The three satellites are the Pakistan remote-sensing satellite (PRSS-2), AIRSAT 03 and 04 satellites, Xinhua added.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) successfully launched 28 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at 06:46 GMT, marking the company's 130th mission of the year and the rocket's 126th flight in 2025. About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 successfully landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the eighth launch and landing for the booster, designated B1090, which had previously supported several missions, including CRS-33, O3b mPOWER-E, Crew-10, Bandwagon-3, O3b mPOWER-D, and two earlier Starlink missions. The flight, designated Starlink 10-59, expands SpaceX's rapidly growing Starlink constellation, which now includes more than 8,500 satellites designed to provide global broadband internet coverage. In addition to the Falcon 9 missions, SpaceX has also conducted four suborbital test flights of its Starship rocket this year, with a fifth test scheduled for October 13.