Updated at 7:25 p.m. ET: SpaceX has adjusted its launch time for the Starlink 6-37 mission.
SpaceX plans a fourth launch in January with another Starlink flight. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink satellites will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at 8:42 p.m. ET (0142 UTC). want to be.
The company was conducting launches from the Cape about every four days until the end of 2023. But the pace of launches on the East Coast has slowed slightly for one of the two Florida-based drone ships. ” is still on hold after it was damaged during booster recovery in late December.
Spaceflight Now will provide live coverage of the launch starting one hour before launch.
The first stage booster supporting Saturday night’s launch, tail number B1073, is scheduled to fly 12 times on the Starlink 6-37 mission. His accomplishments include the launch of his HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander for ispace, his 27th Commercial Resupply Service (CRS-27) mission for SpaceX, and his seven Starlink missions.
Approximately eight and a half minutes after liftoff, B1073 will land on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. This is the 57th landing at ASOG and the 263rd landing of a SpaceX booster to date. SpaceX will also work to recover the payload fairing.
starlink driving business
Starlink’s mission has been and continues to be the cornerstone of SpaceX’s business model. In a company speech published on social media, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that two-thirds of the 96 Falcon flights in 2023 were Starlink missions.
Musk pointed out that Russia’s Soyuz rocket launched 63 times in one year, a previous record. SpaceX launched 63 Starlink missions in 2023 using only Falcon 9 rockets. He quipped that broadband Internet satellites are rapidly increasing the pace of launches.
“So for a while I was posting things like, ‘Is this a launch that just happened or is this a launch that’s going to happen?'” Because there were about three launches in a few days. Because of this,” Musk said. “all [96] We arrived safely and everyone landed. So it’s a big move for the Falcon team. ”
Musk said the Starlink V2 Mini will continue to fly until the Starship rocket can begin launching full-sized Starlink V2 satellites, and Musk said it may eventually be called Starlink V3. Stated.
“The biggest and only goal for Starlink from a technical standpoint is to get average latency below 20 milliseconds,” Musk said, adding that the network will eventually be faster than ground systems. He added that he hopes for But after a few minutes, he pointed out that Starlink is not a replacement for terrestrial internet.
“It works very well in sparsely populated areas, but it’s not really competitive in dense cities,” Musk said. “It’s a really low-density situation, and that’s exactly where the need is.
Musk also said the company is working to activate Starlink services in more than half of the world by population by the end of 2024. He further added that he is also introducing what he calls a “Starlink Mini user terminal that fits in a backpack.” ”
![](http://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/20240112_Starlink_mini_terminal.jpg)
big ambition
SpaceX expects to far surpass that record launch year in 2023. Musk said his goal is to complete about 150 launches, not including the Starship launch. To accomplish that, SpaceX will need to gradually increase the rotation rate of her three launch pads.
Musk has said he wants to get that rate to less than 24 hours by the end of the year. However, he did not go into detail about what steps SpaceX would take to achieve that goal starting at the pad infrastructure level.
But he said the company is working to double launch eligibility for the Falcon first stage booster fleet.
“This is our 19th re-flight. We are currently in the process of certifying the Falcon 9 for 40 flights,” Musk said. “And don’t forget about fairing restoration. In fact, many people don’t know that we also restore fairings.”
Musk said he has recovered payload fairings 300 times. They hope to add two more following Saturday night’s mission.
![](http://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/20240112_Falcon-9_fairing_recovery.jpg)