SpaceX plans to ship one more batch of its Starlink web satellites to orbit tonight (Oct. 18).
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 20 Starlink craft, together with 13 with direct-to-cell functionality, is scheduled to elevate off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station tonight at 7:31 p.m. EDT (2331 GMT).
SpaceX will stream the launch dwell through X (previously Twitter), starting about 5 minutes earlier than liftoff.
If all goes in response to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come again to Earth about 8.5 minutes after liftoff, touchdown on the drone ship “Simply Learn the Directions” within the Atlantic Ocean.
It is going to be the seventeenth launch and touchdown for this explicit booster, in response to a SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, will proceed hauling the Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, deploying them there about 64 minutes after liftoff.
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The brand new batch will be part of the massive and ever-growing Starlink megaconstellation, which at present consists of greater than 6,400 energetic spacecraft, in response to astrophysicist and satellite tv for pc tracker Jonathan McDowell. About 230 of these satellites are direct-to-cell craft.
SpaceX has launched 96 Falcon 9 missions up to now in 2024, two-thirds of them devoted to constructing out the Starlink community. The corporate has additionally launched two Falcon Heavy missions and three take a look at flights of its Starship megarocket this 12 months.
