SpaceX will launch one other large batch of its Starlink broadband satellites and land a rocket on a ship at sea Thursday (Oct. 27), and you’ll watch it stay.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 53 Starlink satellites is scheduled to elevate off from California’s Vandenberg Area Pressure Base Thursday at 8:52 p.m. EDT (5:52 p.m. native California time; 0052 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 likely be stationed within the Pacific Ocean.
Associated: SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation launches in photos
Will probably be the eighth liftoff and touchdown for this specific booster, according to a SpaceX mission description (opens in new tab). The rocket beforehand helped launch the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich Earth-observation satellite 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 approach to orbit, ultimately deploying the 53 Starlinks round 15.5 minutes after launch.
SpaceX has already launched more than 3,500 satellites (opens in new tab) for Starlink, its web megaconstellation, which already supplies service to clients world wide.
Lots 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 large Starlink batches skyward.
Mike Wall is the creator of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e-book concerning the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
