SpaceX is poised to launch a Swedish broadband satellite tonight (Jan. 3) on the company’s second mission of 2024, and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Ovzon 3 satellite is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight during a 10-minute window that opens at 6:04 p.m. EST (2304 GMT).
You can watch it live in the window above, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company’s account on X. Coverage will begin about 15 minutes before the launch window opens, according to a SpaceX mission description.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 23 Starlink satellites on Dec. 2, 2023. (Image credit: SpaceX)
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth tonight, touching down back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes after liftoff. It will be the 10th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to the SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will continue carrying Ovzon 3 skyward, eventually deploying the spacecraft in geosynchronous transfer orbit about 38.5 minutes after launch.
Ovzon 3 is “the first privately funded and developed Swedish geostationary satellite,” EverydayAstronaut.com wrote. “It is a communications satellite which will cover 1/3 of the Earth via its steerable spot beams, meeting the demand for better mobile broadband coverage in under-served regions.”
Geostationary orbit lies about 22,200 miles (35,700 kilometers) above Earth. At this altitude, orbital speed matches our planet’s rotational speed, allowing satellites to “hover” over the same patch of ground continuously.
Tonight’s launch will be the second of 2024 for SpaceX. The company lofted 21 of its Starlink internet satellites, including the first six “direct to cell” spacecraft, yesterday (Jan. 2) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
There will be many more liftoffs to come: SpaceX representatives have said the company aims to launch 144 orbital missions this year. That would smash the SpaceX record of 96, which was set in 2023.
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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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