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SpaceX Launches First Satellites for Its Internet Service


A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket, with a payload of 60 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 during a time exposure at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., May 23, 2019.
A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket, with a payload of 60 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 during a time exposure at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., May 23, 2019.

A SpaceX rocket has launched 60 satellites into orbit, which will be used to provide internet service from space.

The rocket was launched Thursday night from Cape Canaveral in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida.

It had been originally scheduled to launch last week, but was postponed because of high winds over the Cape and the need for a software update.

The Starlink internet service will go into service only after hundreds more satellites are launched into orbit and activated.

SpaceX is the private rocket company of Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk said he saw Thursday's launch as "a key stepping stone on the way towards establishing a self-sustaining city on Mars and a base on the moon."

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