SpaceX temporarily took over the Space Coast spotlight last week when United Launch Alliance managed an Atlas V liftoff for Amazon, but Elon Musk’s team is back to work launching more Starlink satellites into orbit.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 more second-generation internet satellites is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 9:18 p.m., with five backup windows from 9:57 p.m. to 12:35 a.m. Monday and another six backups starting at 8:42 p.m. and running through early Tuesday at 12:10 a.m.
The weather squadron for Space Launch Delta 45 predicts an 80% chance of excellent circumstances and a 95% possibility of a 24-hour delay.
The mission’s first-stage rocket is on its 14th flight and will attempt another rescue landing in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
In 2023, it would be the 55th launch from the Space Coast, with all but four coming from SpaceX. ULA has three launches under its belt, including the Amazon launch on Friday, and startup Relativity Space launched its 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket in March.
It’s the first of at least two SpaceX launches from the Space Coast this week, with the fourth Falcon Heavy launch of the year scheduled from neighboring Kennedy Space Center on what would be the rocket’s first NASA mission ever. The expedition plans to launch a probe named Psyche on a multiyear journey to the same-named metal-rich asteroid between Mars and Jupiter on Thursday at 10:16 a.m.
However, the vast majority of SpaceX launches have been Falcon 9s, largely for Starlink and mostly from Cape Canaveral.
It’s one of two Starlink launches scheduled for SpaceX from opposite coasts that might take place within hours of one other. Another Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 4 East in California is scheduled to launch at 3:23 a.m. EDT Monday (12:23 a.m. PDT) to add another 21 satellites to the constellation, which has seen over 5,200 launches since the first operational units were launched in 2019.
The latest versions, known as v2 minis, are larger than the original Starlinks. Previously, Falcon 9 rockets could fit roughly 60 of them into orbit per launch, but Falcon 9 rockets can only fit about 22.
SpaceX had planned to build a much larger Starlink satellite and launch it into orbit using its in-development Starship, but delays in getting Starship into space have caused a shift in plans to expand the company’s constellation and its business of providing global internet, which Musk confirmed last week was approaching 2 million customers.
Although it is still by far the largest in orbit, Amazon’s Atlas V launch placed the company’s first two prototype satellites for Project Kuiper, a competitive broadband constellation.
According to astronomer Jonathan McDowell, Amazon aims to launch more than 3,200 of those satellites into orbit by summer 2029, while SpaceX still has a license from the Federal Communications Commission to launch up to 7,500.
He stated that several other firms and nations have ambitions to increase the overall number of low-Earth orbit satellites to 10,000 to 20,000 by the end of the decade, and to around 100,000 by 2040.
