A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch for an unprecedented fifteenth time on Saturday (Dec. 17), and you’ll watch the record-breaking motion dwell.
A Falcon 9 topped with 54 of SpaceX’s Starlink web satellites is scheduled to carry off from NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida Saturday at 4:32 p.m. ET (2132 GMT). It will likely be the fifteenth launch for this Falcon 9’s first stage, setting a brand new reusability mark for SpaceX.
Watch it dwell right here at Area.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company (opens in new tab). Protection will start about 5 minutes earlier than liftoff.
Associated: SpaceX’s Starlink satellite megaconstellation launches in photos
If all goes in keeping with plan, the Falcon 9 first stage will come again to Earth for the fifteenth time on Saturday. Slightly below 9 minutes after liftoff, it can land on SpaceX’s Simply Learn the Directions droneship, which shall be stationed within the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.
The rocket’s higher stage will proceed hauling the 54 Starlink craft to low Earth orbit, deploying all of them about 15.5 minutes after launch, in keeping with a SpaceX mission description (opens in new tab).
Starlink is SpaceX’s large and ever-growing constellation of broadband satellites, which beam web service to folks around the globe.
The corporate has already launched greater than 3,500 Starlink spacecraft up to now and intends to loft many extra. SpaceX utilized for permission from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to deploy almost 30,000 of its next-generation Starlink 2.0 satellites, which the corporate goals to loft primarily utilizing its Starship deep-space transportation system. The FAA lately granted approval for 7,500 of those spacecraft however is reserving judgment on the remainder.
Saturday’s launch would be the third in two days for SpaceX. On Friday (Dec. 16), a Falcon 9 launched the SWOT water-watching satellite for NASA from California’s Vandenberg Area Pressure Base, and one other lofted two satellites for European telecom firm SES from Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station in Florida.
The SES mission was the two hundredth orbital launch for SpaceX, and the 191st for the Falcon 9. The opposite 9 flights had been by the now-retired Falcon 1 (5 liftoffs between 2006 and 2009) and the still-active Falcon Heavy (4 missions up to now).
Mike Wall is the creator of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a ebook concerning the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
