SpaceX launches predawn Starlink mission on President’s Day – Spaceflight Now

Update Feb. 16, 3:22 a.m. EST (0822 UTC): SpaceX landed the Falcon 9 booster on the droneship.

SpaceX kicked off the President’s Day vacation within the United States with a Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, overcoming some difficult climate circumstances.

The Starlink 6-103 mission added 29 broadband web satellites to the corporate’s low Earth orbit megaconstellation of greater than 9,600 spacecraft. This was SpaceX’s 14 Starlink launch of the yr to this point. The firm confirmed a profitable deployment of the satellites about an hour after launch.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 occurred at 2:59:40 a.m. EST (0759:40 UTC). The Falcon 9 rocket flew on a south-easterly trajectory upon leaving the launch pad.



The forty fifth Weather Squadron forecast only a 20 p.c likelihood for acceptable climate in the course of the launch window. Meteorologists are monitoring doubtlessly extreme climate heading into the state over the course of Sunday and heading into Monday.

“As the low slides eastwards to move off the Georgia coast late tonight, south-southwest winds will increase during the day, even outside of any precipitation,” launch climate officers wrote. “Models have come into higher settlement with the timing of a band of pre-frontal showers and storms, at present shifting via the Florida Panhandle, reaching the Spaceport simply earlier than the opening of the first window.

“Showers and storms are expected to linger for a few hours into the window before sliding south of the area. While this activity loses intensity as it arrives, strong wind gusts will still be possible. The primary concerns will be the Cumulus Cloud Rule, Surface Electric Fields Rule, and Anvil Cloud Rules, though additional thunderstorm-related rules are likely.”

SpaceX launched the mission utilizing the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail quantity 1090. This was its tenth flight after launching earlier missions, like NASA’s Crew-10, CRS-33 and Bandwagon-3.

Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1090 landed on the drone ship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas,’ positioned within the Atlantic Ocean. This was the 142nd touchdown on this vessel and the 572nd booster touchdown thus far.