SpaceX to launch 24 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX is gearing up for its first Falcon 9 rocket launch from the West Coast in 9 days with a mission to ship 24 optimized Starlink V2 Mini satellites right into a polar, low Earth orbit.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California is scheduled for 8:43 p.m. PDT (11:43 p.m. EDT / 0343 UTC).

Spaceflight Now could have reside protection starting about half-hour previous to liftoff.

SpaceX will launch the mission utilizing its Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail quantity B1093. This will probably be its fifth flight after beforehand launching 4 batches of Starlink satellites.

Roughly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1093 will goal a touchdown on the droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ If profitable, this may be the 144th touchdown on this vessel.

If SpaceX is ready to launch the KF-02 mission for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband satellite tv for pc constellation, Saturday morning, the Starlink 17-4 mission will signify the corporate’s 98th Falcon 9 launch of 2025.

Expanding protection

SpaceX introduced Monday that its Starlink service is now out there in Somalia and Israel. Other nations and areas within the Middle East, like Gaza, the West Bank, and Iraq are listed on SpaceX’s Starlink protection map with the caveat “service date is unknown right now.

Kuwait reveals protection starting someday in 2025. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates are all designated as “pending regulatory approval.” SpaceX founder Elon Musk visited Saudi Arabia alongside President Donald Trump and different U.S. officers in May 2025 as a part of what was billed because the US-Saudi Investment Forum.

In a readout from that journey, the White House said that the 2 nations signed a $142 billion army sale, which the administration referred to as “the largest defense sales agreement in history.” That included broad funding in “air force advancement and space capabilities.”

At the time, CNBC reported that Musk inked a take care of Saudi Arabia to permit Starlink use in maritime and aviation functions. He didn’t specify how a lot the deal was price.