Spaceflight Now will present dwell protection of the Starlink 6-18 launch from Cape Canaveral, with commentary, beginning about an hour earlier than launch.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Saturday evening with a booster making its seventeenth flight. It will likely be solely the second to achieve this milestone and the 2 hundredth time SpaceX has launched a beforehand flown Falcon 9 first stage. Liftoff, with 22 Starlink satellites inside its payload fairing, is scheduled for 9:07 p.m. EDT (0107 UTC Sunday).
The primary stage for this Starlink 6-18 mission, is booster 1060, which first flew in June 2020 carrying the GPS 3-3 satellite tv for pc for the U.S. House Power and went on to fly the Turksat 5A, Transporter-2, Intelsat G-33/G-34 and Transporter-6 mission, plus 11 Starlink supply flights.
Simply 4 days in the past, booster 1058 grew to become the primary Falcon 9 first stage to make a seventeenth flight on the Starlink 6-17 mission. SpaceX had beforehand recognized B1060 as the primary stage for that mission however corrected the error on its web site after the launch.
SpaceX just lately re-certified its Falcon 9 first-stage fleet for 20 reuses, 5 greater than the earlier ranking.
Glorious climate is forecast for Saturday evening. U.S. House Power meteorologists, in a forecast issued Friday, predicted solely a 5-percent likelihood of a climate rule violation. Ought to SpaceX have to the delay the launch it has further launch alternatives at 9:57 p.m. EDT (0157 UTC), 11:38 p.m. EDT (0338 UTC) and 12:05 a.m. EDT (0405 UTC). One other 4 launch alternatives can be found Sunday evening.
After lifting off from House Launch Advanced 40 at Cape Canaveral House Power Station, the Falcon 9 will roll and pitch on to a trajectory that may take it south-east. Following stage separation, about two and half minutes into flight, booster 1060 will arc in the direction of a touchdown on the drone ship “Simply Learn the Directions” which will likely be stationed about 420 miles (675 km) downrange within the Atlantic east of the Bahamas.
The one Merlin Vacuum engine of the second stage will burn for about six minutes to achieve a parking orbit. A two-second burn 53 minutes 57 seconds into flight will refine the orbit earlier than the 22 Starlink satellites are deployed right into a 185×178 mile (297x286km) orbit. Separation of the V2 Mini Starlink satellites will happen about one hour 5 minutes after launch.
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