SpaceX is planning a late-night Falcon 9 rocket launch from California, hours after it scrubbed a Falcon 9 launch from Florida on Wednesday.
The Starlink 9-10 mission will add one other 20 satellites to the rising megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. Amongst them are 13 satellites that embrace Direct to Cell capabilities.
Liftoff from Area Launch Complicated 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Area Pressure base is about for 11:02 p.m. PST (0202 a.m. EST, 0702 UTC). This would be the 72nd devoted Starlink launch this 12 months.
Spaceflight Now can have dwell protection starting about half-hour previous to liftoff.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, tail quantity B1081 within the SpaceX fleet, might be launching for an eleventh time. Its earlier missions included the launches of the Crew-7 astronaut mission to the Worldwide Area Station, the CRS-29 cargo flight to the ISS, and NASA’s PACE mission.
As soon as it leaves the pad, the Falcon 9 rocket will fly in a southeasterly trajectory alongside the coastlines of California and Mexico. A bit greater than eight minutes after liftoff, B1081 is about to land on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Of Course I Nonetheless Love You,’ which is positioned within the Pacific Ocean.
If profitable, this would be the 107th booster touchdown for OCISLY and the 363rd booster touchdown thus far.
The 13 Starlink satellites on board the mission that includes DTC capabilities may even carry the whole variety of such satellites launched to 285. Following the latest launch of those satellites in late October, Ben Longmier, the senior director of satellite tv for pc engineering for SpaceX, mentioned they have been closing in finishing this preliminary section of the DTC Starlink constellation.
“We’ll proceed to launch and enhance the service after that as a way to enhance the protection and latency for our accomplice telcos around the globe,” Longmier mentioned in an Oct. 30 put up on X, previously Twitter. A few of these companions embrace T-Cell within the U.S., One New Zealand in New Zealand and Rogers in Canada.
As soon as this flight is within the books, he mentioned there might be simply 4 extra launches want to succeed in their purpose.
Additionally in late October, Longmeir mentioned they carried out the primary DTC checks in Japan.
First @Starlink Direct to Cell demo in Japan with our nice accomplice @official_kddi @au_official !!
The take a look at occurred on the island of Kumejima, Okinawa Prefecture, a really stunning place. https://t.co/WkvyBc3FB5
— Ben Longmier (@longmier) October 24, 2024
