SpaceX is ready to launch one other batch of its Starlink web satellites to orbit tonight (March 28).
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to carry off from Vandenberg Area Drive Base in California tonight throughout a four-hour window that opens at 10:30 p.m. EDT (7:30 p.m. native California time; 0230 GMT on March 29).
You possibly can watch it dwell by way of SpaceX’s account on X. Protection will start about 5 minutes earlier than the window opens.
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If all goes based on plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come again to Earth for a vertical landing about 8.5 minutes after liftoff tonight. That touchdown will happen on the deck of the drone ship Of Course I Nonetheless Love You, which might be stationed within the Pacific Ocean.
It will likely be the fifteenth launch and touchdown for this specific booster, based on a SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage will proceed hauling the 22 Starlink satellites towards low Earth orbit (LEO), the place they are going to be deployed about 62 minutes after liftoff.
Tonight’s launch would be the thirtieth Falcon 9 flight of 2024, and the twentieth devoted to constructing out the Starlink megaconstellation. Thus far, SpaceX has lofted 6,077 Starlink satellites, 5,610 of that are at present operational, according to astrophysicist and satellite tv for pc tracker Jonathan McDowell.
These already-staggering numbers will proceed to develop far into the long run. SpaceX has permission to deploy 12,000 Starlink craft in LEO and has utilized for approval for one more 30,000 on high of that.
