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SpaceX Launches Dozens of Internet Satellites Into Orbit

Elon Musk says it’s the first step in a planned megaconstellation of satellites that will beam cheap internet around Earth.

Elon Musk’s quest to make money from space launched Thursday night when SpaceX sent 60 satellites into orbit in the first step toward creating a megaconstellation to beam cheap broadband around the planet. Musk has named the project Starlink—he hopes the network will eventually be made up of around 12,000 satellites that are capable of giving customers high-speed internet wherever they are in the world. The company’s Falcon 9 rocket took off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral at 10:30 p.m. ET, then an hour later the rocket deployed a so-called payload stack that gradually dropped the individual satellites into orbit. Musk confirmed in a late-night tweet that the 60 satellites had been deployed and were now “online.” But it will take at least six more missions before Starlink can provide consistent internet coverage for any part of the world.