SpaceX is making ready to launch its fourth Falcon 9 rocket since Sunday with a mission carrying the corporate’s newest batch of Starlink web satellites.
Liftoff of the Starlink 6-66 mission pad 40 at Cape Canaveral House Power Station is scheduled for 11:07 a.m. EST (1607 UTC) on Thursday. House Power meteorologists give the rocket a 90 % probability of fine climate for launch, with liftoff winds being the one concern on the launch web site. In addition they listed restoration climate within the booster touchdown zone as a low to reasonable danger.
Spaceflight Now may have stay protection starting about an hour previous to liftoff.
The launch comes days after SpaceX’s largely profitable Starlink Flight 6 mission on Tuesday, which showcased the primary daytime splashdown of its Ship higher stage.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, with the tail quantity B1069, is launching for a twentieth time. It beforehand supported the launches of CRS-24, OneWeb 15 and 15 earlier Starlink flights.
Just a little greater than eight minutes after liftoff, the primary stage booster will land on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ If profitable, will probably be the 86th booster touchdown on ASOG and the 372nd booster touchdown to this point.
On Monday, Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vp of launch, famous that there have been 21 extra launches on the corporate’s launch manifest that it needed to finish earlier than the top of the 12 months.
If SpaceX is ready to notch all of them earlier than the top of the 12 months, it should shut out 2024 with 136 orbital launches. Two of this 12 months’s launches had been Falcon Heavy rockets. The Falcon 9 has had a single failure this 12 months on the Starlink 9-3 mission which suffered an higher stage situation.
21 launches stay on the manifest in 2024 with 43 days to go https://t.co/mYZUh2s2Dh
— Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver) November 18, 2024
