SpaceX will launch one other massive batch of its Starlink broadband satellites and land a rocket on a ship at sea Thursday (Oct. 27), and you may watch it reside.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 53 Starlink satellites is scheduled to raise off from California’s Vandenberg House Pressure Base Thursday at 9:14 p.m. EDT (6:14 p.m. native California time; 0114 GMT on Oct. 28).
If all goes in accordance with plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come again to Earth and made a pinpoint touchdown rather less than 9 minutes after launch on the SpaceX droneship Of Course I Nonetheless Love You, which will probably be stationed within the Pacific Ocean.
Associated: SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation launches in images
Will probably be the eighth liftoff and touchdown for this explicit booster, in accordance with a SpaceX mission description (opens in new tab). The rocket beforehand helped launch the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Earth-observation satellite tv for pc in November 2020, NASA’s DART asteroid-smashing probe in November 2021, and 5 different Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, will proceed powering its option to orbit, ultimately deploying the 53 Starlinks round 15.5 minutes after launch.
SpaceX has already launched greater than 3,500 satellites (opens in new tab) for Starlink, its web megaconstellation, which already supplies service to clients around the globe.
A lot of these spacecraft have gone up this yr. SpaceX has launched 48 orbital missions already in 2022, and almost two-thirds of them have ferried massive Starlink batches skyward.
Editor’s word: This story was up to date to right the launch time for SpaceX’s Starlink launch.
Mike Wall is the creator of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a ebook concerning the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Fb (opens in new tab).
