SpaceX launch lights up night sky over Cape Canaveral

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink satellites Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Friday, 22 December.

The rocket launched shortly after 12am local time, and returned roughly nine minutes after it launched on the drone ship ‘Just Read the Instructions’, stationed over the Florida coast.

It was the 19th launch for this particular Falcon 9 stage as SpaceX continues to build its Starlink broadband mega-constellation, which currently consists of nearly 5,200 operational satellites.

Starlink is a satellite network developed by SpaceX aimed at providing low-cost internet to remote locations.