A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 23 Starlink satellites from Florida on Nov. 27, 2023.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX plans to launch another batch of its broadband satellites to orbit from Florida on Sunday (Jan. 14).
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight during a four-hour-long window that opens at 7:27 p.m. EST (0027 GMT on Jan. 15). The launch was originally scheduled for Saturday evening (Jan. 13) but was pushed back a day, presumably by bad weather.
You can watch the launch via SpaceX’s account on X, starting about five minutes before the window opens.
Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky
The Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff, if all goes according to plan. It will land on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be the 12th launch and landing for this booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. Among its previous flights are seven other Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage will continue hauling the 23 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit tonight. They’ll be deployed there about 64.5 minutes after liftoff.
Starlink is SpaceX’s broadband megaconstellation. It currently consists of more than 5,250 operational spacecraft, but that number is increasing all the time, as Sunday’s planned liftoff shows.
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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, “Out There,” was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.
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