SpaceX plans to loft 22 of its Starlink broadband satellites early Monday morning (Oct. 9) on the second half of a launch doubleheader.
The Starlink spacecraft are scheduled to carry off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg House Power Base at 3:23 a.m. EDT (0723 GMT and 12:23 a.m. native California time). 4 backup alternatives can be found as nicely, from 4:14 a.m. EDT till 7:46 a.m. EDT (0814 to 1146 GMT).
You’ll be able to watch the motion reside by way of SpaceX’s account on X (previously often known as Twitter) . Protection will start about 5 minutes earlier than liftoff.
Associated: Starlink satellite tv for pc practice: Tips on how to see and observe it within the evening sky
If all goes in keeping with plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth for a vertical touchdown at sea on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Nonetheless Love You about 8.5 minutes after launch.
It will likely be the 14th liftoff and touchdown for this specific Falcon 9 first stage, in keeping with a SpaceX mission description. One among its earlier launches lofted NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Take a look at (DART), which deliberately slammed a probe into an asteroid in September 2022.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, will deploy the 22 Starlink spacecraft into low Earth orbit about 62.5 minutes after launch.
Monday morning’s Starlink launch would be the second of two back-to-back Starlink launches, if all goes in keeping with plan. A Falcon 9 is scheduled to loft 22 Starlinks from Florida’s Cape Canaveral House Power Station on Sunday (Oct. 8) at 9:06 p.m. EDT (0106 GMT on Oct. 9).
Starlink is SpaceX’s web megaconstellation, which at present consists of more than 4,800 operational spacecraft. However that quantity continues to rise, as these two Starlink launches present.
