SpaceX launch 60 more Starlink satellites Wednesday and attempt a Falcon 9
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SpaceX is launching its latest Starlink mission today, with a takeoff time of 8:16 AM EDT (5:16 AM PDT) currently scheduled to take place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. The launch will carry 60 more Starlink broadband internet satellites to their low Earth orbit destination, using a Falcon 9 rocket with a booster that flew four times previously, including twice in 2018 and twice last year, most recently in November for another Starlink mission. This is the second launch attempt for this mission, after a scrubbed attempt on Sunday due to an engine power issue, and there’s a backup launch opportunity set for Thursday at 7:56 AM EDT should this try encounter any issues or weather delays.
SpaceX will add 60 more satellites to its Starlink internet megaconstellation tomorrow morning (March 18), and you can watch the liftoff live.
This will be the sixth 60-spacecraft batch that SpaceX has lofted for Starlink, which is already the biggest satellite constellation in history. SpaceX is proceeding with this launch despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which late on Tuesday prompted NASA to move to a ‘Stage 3’ condition across all of their facilities, which mandates telework for all agency employees except for those whose presence on site are mission critical for operations. But Starlink will get much larger still, if all goes according to SpaceX's plan. The company has approval to launch about 12,000 Starlink craft and has applied for permission for up to 30,000 more. (But Starlink will likely be commercially viable with just 1,000 or so satellites, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said. And the company intends to notch that numerical milestone this year.)
The California-based company has made significant progress toward this goal, as the rocket flying tomorrow's mission shows. SpaceX aims to slash the cost of spaceflight by developing rapidly and completely reusable vehicles. The Falcon 9 features a first stage that has already launched four orbital missions, and the payload fairing encapsulating the Starlink satellites was used on the first Starlink mission, in May 2019.
Five flights of a Falcon 9 booster would be a record for SpaceX – and the booster that it’s attempting this mission with is already a record-holder, since it achieved This launch will include a landing attempt for the Falcon 9 booster, meaning if all goes well SpaceX could recover it for a fifth time for an attempt at refurbishment and re-use.SpaceX’s existing high-water mark for re-use with its last November launch.
And there could be further flights in this hardware's future as well. SpaceX will try to land the Falcon 9 first stage yet again on the drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You," which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. And the company will attempt to snag the two halves of the falling payload fairing using its two net-equipped boats, "Ms. Tree" and "Ms. Chief," SpaceX representatives wrote in a mission description.
SpaceX plans to begin commercial operation of the constellation later this year if all goes well, providing high-speed, reliable broadband internet to customers in North America, with lower latency and better speeds than are available using existing satellite internet service, which depend on larger, geosynchronous satellites placed much farther out from Earth. The primary mission is to deliver the sixth batch of 60 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites to space, which will grow the total constellation size to 360.
SpaceX has been attempting these recoveries in order to further increase the reusability (and reduce the cost) of launch but so far it hasn’t had much consistency in its success, catching three fairings in total.
SpaceX will also be aiming to recover the two fairing halves used to protect the satellite cargo on this launch, using two ships stationed at sea that have large nets strung across struts extending from their surface. The fairing being used today flew before, too – during the May 2019 Starlink satellite launch.
Tomorrow morning's launch was originally scheduled to take place Sunday (March 15), but an engine-power issue with the Falcon 9 triggered an automatic abort just before liftoff. The broadcast of the launch will begin above around 15 minutes prior to the target takeoff time, so at around 8:01 AM EDT (5:01 AM PDT).
SpaceX is launching its latest Starlink mission today, with a takeoff time of 8:16 AM EDT (5:16 AM PDT) currently scheduled to take place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. The launch will carry 60 more Starlink broadband internet satellites to their low Earth orbit destination, using a Falcon 9 rocket with a booster that flew four times previously, including twice in 2018 and twice last year, most recently in November for another Starlink mission. This is the second launch attempt for this mission, after a scrubbed attempt on Sunday due to an engine power issue, and there’s a backup launch opportunity set for Thursday at 7:56 AM EDT should this try encounter any issues or weather delays.
SpaceX will add 60 more satellites to its Starlink internet megaconstellation tomorrow morning (March 18), and you can watch the liftoff live.
This will be the sixth 60-spacecraft batch that SpaceX has lofted for Starlink, which is already the biggest satellite constellation in history. SpaceX is proceeding with this launch despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which late on Tuesday prompted NASA to move to a ‘Stage 3’ condition across all of their facilities, which mandates telework for all agency employees except for those whose presence on site are mission critical for operations. But Starlink will get much larger still, if all goes according to SpaceX's plan. The company has approval to launch about 12,000 Starlink craft and has applied for permission for up to 30,000 more. (But Starlink will likely be commercially viable with just 1,000 or so satellites, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said. And the company intends to notch that numerical milestone this year.)
The California-based company has made significant progress toward this goal, as the rocket flying tomorrow's mission shows. SpaceX aims to slash the cost of spaceflight by developing rapidly and completely reusable vehicles. The Falcon 9 features a first stage that has already launched four orbital missions, and the payload fairing encapsulating the Starlink satellites was used on the first Starlink mission, in May 2019.
Five flights of a Falcon 9 booster would be a record for SpaceX – and the booster that it’s attempting this mission with is already a record-holder, since it achieved This launch will include a landing attempt for the Falcon 9 booster, meaning if all goes well SpaceX could recover it for a fifth time for an attempt at refurbishment and re-use.SpaceX’s existing high-water mark for re-use with its last November launch.
And there could be further flights in this hardware's future as well. SpaceX will try to land the Falcon 9 first stage yet again on the drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You," which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. And the company will attempt to snag the two halves of the falling payload fairing using its two net-equipped boats, "Ms. Tree" and "Ms. Chief," SpaceX representatives wrote in a mission description.
SpaceX plans to begin commercial operation of the constellation later this year if all goes well, providing high-speed, reliable broadband internet to customers in North America, with lower latency and better speeds than are available using existing satellite internet service, which depend on larger, geosynchronous satellites placed much farther out from Earth. The primary mission is to deliver the sixth batch of 60 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites to space, which will grow the total constellation size to 360.
SpaceX has been attempting these recoveries in order to further increase the reusability (and reduce the cost) of launch but so far it hasn’t had much consistency in its success, catching three fairings in total.
SpaceX will also be aiming to recover the two fairing halves used to protect the satellite cargo on this launch, using two ships stationed at sea that have large nets strung across struts extending from their surface. The fairing being used today flew before, too – during the May 2019 Starlink satellite launch.
Tomorrow morning's launch was originally scheduled to take place Sunday (March 15), but an engine-power issue with the Falcon 9 triggered an automatic abort just before liftoff. The broadcast of the launch will begin above around 15 minutes prior to the target takeoff time, so at around 8:01 AM EDT (5:01 AM PDT).
