SpaceX will launch one other batch of its Starlink web satellites from California’s central coast tonight (Nov. 13).
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 20 Starlink spacecraft, together with 13 with direct-to-cell functionality, is scheduled to raise off from Vandenberg House Power Base tonight at 11:21 p.m. EST (8:21 p.m. native California time; 0321 GMT on Nov. 14).
SpaceX will webcast the motion stay by way of X, starting about 5 minutes earlier than launch.
If all goes in accordance with plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth for a vertical landing about eight minutes after liftoff. It should land on the SpaceX droneship “Of Course I Nonetheless Love You,” which will probably be stationed within the Pacific Ocean.
It will likely be the eighth launch and touchdown for this explicit booster, in accordance with a SpaceX mission description. 5 of its earlier seven flights had been Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage will haul the 20 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, deploying them there about 60 minutes after liftoff.
Starlink is the largest satellite tv for pc constellation ever constructed — and it is repeatedly rising, as tonight’s deliberate launch reveals. There are at the moment greater than 6,500 energetic Starlink spacecraft, in accordance with satellite tv for pc tracker and astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, 270 of that are direct-to-cell succesful.
