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

SpaceX is making ready to launch its subsequent Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Thursday morning, a day earlier than the corporate’s inventory turns into publicly accessible on the Nasdaq.

The Starlink 17-44 mission will add one other 24 broadband web satellites to the corporate’s low Earth orbit constellation. There are greater than 10,500 Starlink satellites at the moment in orbit.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East is scheduled for 8:05 a.m. PDT (11:05 a.m. EDT / 1504:40 UTC). The rocket will fly on a south-southwesterly trajectory upon leaving the pad.

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

SpaceX will launch the mission utilizing the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail quantity B1071. This might be its thirty fourth flight after launching 5 occasions for the National Reconnaissance Office, 5 SpaceX rideshare missions, Germany’s SARah-1, NASA’s SWOT, CAS500-2 for South Korea and 20 earlier Starlink supply flights.

The first stage booster will goal a touchdown on the SpaceX drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ positioned within the Pacific Ocean about eight and half minutes after launch. If profitable, this would be the 202nd touchdown on this vessel and the 622nd booster touchdown for SpaceX.