A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch 21 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg House Drive Base in California at 12:47 a.m. PDT (3:47 a.m. EDT, 0747 UTC). It’s the first of two Starlink supply missions deliberate for Saturday.
The Falcon 9 will set off on a south-easterly trajectory after lifting off from House Launch Advanced 4 East (SLC-4E). It is going to be SpaceX’s twenty second mission from the West Coast this yr and its seventy fifth orbital launch of 2023 general.
Spaceflight Now will present dwell video protection in our Launch Pad Dwell stream.
The primary stage booster is making its sixteenth flight. It beforehand launched the Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4, Transporter-5, Globalstar FM15 and ISI EROS C-3 missions, plus six Starlink supply flights. After finishing its primary burn, lasting about two and a half minutes, the primary stage will proceed downrange to land on the drone ship ‘Of Course I nonetheless Love You’ stationed about 400 miles downrange (644km) within the Pacific Ocean offshore of Baja California.
Deployment of the 21 V2 Mini Starlink satellites will happen simply over an hour after launch. The V2 Mini mannequin is far bigger than the earlier V1.5 satellites. Geared up with upgraded antennae and bigger photo voltaic panels, these subsequent technology spacecraft can supply 4 instances the bandwidth of the earlier satellites. That is the twenty eighth launch of the V2 Minis since they had been launched in February this yr.
A second Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch on Saturday, this one from Cape Canaveral House Drive Station in Florida. Liftoff is scheduled for 10:17 p.m. EDT (0217 UTC) with 23 Starlinks aboard, probably the most V2 Mini satellites to be carried aloft on single mission.
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