SpaceX lines up overnight launch from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX has another batch of Starlink satellites queued up for a Space Coast launch in the early morning hours Monday.
A Falcon 9 rocket looking to add 53 satellites into the company’s growing internet constellation is aiming for a 3:10 a.m. liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40. A backup opportunity later Monday comes at 4:52 a.m. with options to push until Tuesday as well.
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 90% chance of good conditions Monday with 90% chance if delayed until Tuesday.
The first stage booster is flying for the ninth time with a planned recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas down range in the Atlantic Ocean.
This will be the 89th overall Starlink launch since the first operational deployment of the internet satellites in 2019, and 20th dedicated Starlink mission so far in 2023. With this batch, SpaceX has sent up nearly 4,600 of the satellites, according to statistics tracked by astronomer Jonathan McDowell. The Federal Communications Commission last year upped SpaceX’s license to allow for up to 7,500.
The launch would be the 29th on the Space Coast from either Canaveral or Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX has been responsible for 28 of those 29 with Relativity Space’s lone launch filling out the manifest so far.
United Launch Alliance has yet to fly this year, but could join the launch party later this month on what will be the penultimate launch of its remaining two Delta IV Heavy rockets. That mission for the U.S. Space Force is slated for no earlier than June 21. Its first-ever Vulcan Centaur rocket launch is not expected until at least July while a planned Atlas V launch of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner on its first crewed flight has been delayed from a planned July liftoff and not likely to fly until the fall at the earliest.
SpaceX meanwhile also has a California launch on tap for Monday with a Falcon 9 on the Transporter-8 satellite rideshare flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base during a 57-minute window that opens at 5:19 p.m. EDT with a backup available during the same window on Tuesday.
There will be 72 payloads headed to orbit including small satellites, several orbital transfer vehicles used to get those satellites to farther destinations and one reentry capsule.
Its first-stage booster is flying for its ninth time as well with an attempted recovery headed for Landing Zone 4 at Vandenberg.
Among the payloads are three experimental satellites for the Space Domain Awareness & Combat Power program within the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, part of the Department of Defense’s growing strategy to take flights where it can get them. While SpaceX is the main ride, the DOD’s satellites are going their last miles on transfer vehicles from Spaceflight Inc.
“Cultivating multiple paths to space for experimental satellites is imperative to maintain continued access as space becomes further congested and contested,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Shea, SSC’s director of the DoD’s Space Test Program.
If both rockets fly from Florida and California, SpaceX will have completed 40 orbital launches this year keeping on pace to break 2022’s record of 61 launches for the company.
It would be the 239th successful orbital flight for the company since the first Falcon 1 launch in 2008. Falcon 1 made orbit only twice before the company transitioned to Falcon 9, which flew for the first time in 2010. Falcon 9 has made it to orbit 229 times so far with only one in-flight failure in 2015. Falcon Heavy has flown six times with three more potentially flying this year.
Its in-development rocket Starship has yet to make it to orbit having only made one attempt with the combined Starship and Super Heavy that was destroyed about four minutes after liftoff during a test launch from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas launch facility Starbase on April 20. SpaceX has yet to announce when it will try again, but Musk said in early May that it could go within six to eight weeks meaning a July attempt could be in the cards.