SpaceX plans to launch its second big batch Starlink Internet Satellites Thursday (Sept. 3), and you can watch the action live.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket The top spot with 60 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to take off at 8:46 a.m. Thursday from EDT (1246 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. U.S. According to the Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron, there is an 80% chance of good weather on launch day.
You can see the projection live Here And on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of SpaceX or Directly from the company. SpaceX’s webcasts usually start 15 minutes before the lift. The company also usually offers a separate livestream with mission control audio dio.
SpaceX has already launched about 600 satellites for Starlink, a broadband constellation in its low Earth orbit. And many more missions are launched; Elon Musk’s company has permission to loot 12,000 Starlink satellites and has applied for permission to launch 30,000 more.
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The spaceflight action will be multilayered on Thursday, as SpaceX aims to land in the first phase of a two-stage Falcon 9 on a “drone ship” in the Atlantic Ocean about 9 minutes after the lift off.
The company has also deployed one of its two net-equipped boats, which is a two-piece protective nose cone around the satellites during launch, to achieve the deployment of the rocket’s payload ferries. It is unclear whether the net boat will take the ferring halfway from the sky or get the equipment from the sea.
SpaceX regularly lands and refills the Falcon 9 in the first phase, and the company has only recently begun reusing payload ferring. Such reuse greatly reduces launch costs and turnaround times, Musk said, and is therefore likely to revolutionize spaceflight.
The Starlink launch was originally scheduled to overtake the Falcon 9 doubleheader on Sunday (Aug. 30), while another act was the evening lift off of the Socom-1B Earth-observation satellite. Sunday morning’s Starlink effort turned bad weather, but the sky was clear enough for this. SAOCOM-1B to land After nine hours.
SpaceX then aimed to launch Starlink satellites on Tuesday (Sept. 1) but postponed the mission two more days to conduct additional reviews.
Mike W. Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the quest for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @Mamildld. Follow us on Twitter @speed.com or Facebook.