Weather conditions must be favorable during the 4-hour launch period.
SpaceX Starlink 6-13 Mission
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the company’s latest batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on August 31, 2023.
florida today
It’s launch day!
The SpaceX team at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida is on track to launch a Falcon 9 rocket carrying another batch of the company’s Starlink internet satellites on Saturday.
The 230-foot rocket’s liftoff is set for 9:07 p.m. EDT, extending the launch time by four hours to Sunday at 12:05 a.m. EDT. This will be Space Coast’s 51st launch of the year.
SpaceX broadcasts hosted on X (formerly Twitter) will appear at the top of this page when they become available approximately 5 minutes before launch.
7:30pm ET: Good evening. Welcome to our space team as we broadcast live tonight’s SpaceX Starlink 6-18 mission launch attempt from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. At last check, SpaceX is working toward a 9:07 PM EDT launch, and weather conditions around the spaceport should be 95% favorable. More frequent updates will be provided as the pre-launch countdown progresses. stay tuned.
— Jamie Groh
The first opportunity to launch the Starlink 6-18 mission will be Saturday night at 9:07 ET, with three backup opportunities during the approximately four-hour launch window that will continue until after midnight.
If your team needs it, SpaceX has four backup opportunities starting at 8:41pm ET on Sunday.
According to the Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45, weather conditions are expected to be favorable for the Starlink 6-18 mission. Forecasters with the Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predicted Friday that there was a 95 percent chance of “go” weather conditions around the spaceport during Saturday’s launch period.
The only concern is that there is a slight chance that clouds from the tropical system along the coast will move out of the region over the weekend.
“By Saturday evening, the system will be over North Carolina, leaving mostly dry conditions and northeasterly winds at the spaceport,” forecasters said in a report Friday.
Recovery conditions for booster landing attempts are listed as “low risk.”
- Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station will be held.
- The payload is the next batch of the company’s Starlink internet beam satellites.
- The 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket will follow a southeast trajectory between Florida and the Bahamas.
- If the launch goes as planned, it will be the Space Coast’s 51st launch of the year.
- There will be no localized sonic booms in this mission. The 130-foot-tall first-stage booster will target the drone ship, which will land about eight minutes after liftoff.
- SpaceX said the first stage booster supporting tonight’s mission was on its 17th flight.
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More Starlink missions are scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station soon, but SpaceX has not yet announced the next target launch date.
At nearby Kennedy Space Center, the SpaceX team is preparing a triple-core Falcon Heavy rocket for launch in the first week of October. The mission’s payload will be NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, which will study a metal-rich asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.
The interplanetary mission launch is tentatively scheduled to lift off from Pad 39A by 10:38 a.m. ET on Thursday, October 5.For the latest information, please visit here floridatoday.com/launchschedule.
Contact and follow Jamie Groh at JGroh@floridatoday.com. X.com @AlteredJamie.