SpaceX has postponed its planned launch of 21 new Starlink satellites to early Tuesday (August 22) due to the impact of Hurricane Hillary in the Pacific. You can watch it live online from next week.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Starlink spacecraft will land at Vandenberg Space Force Station in California on Tuesday at 2:04 a.m. EDT (06:04 GMT; 11:04 p.m. local California time on August 21). It is scheduled to be launched from The rocket was originally scheduled to launch in the early hours of Thursday (August 17), but has already been delayed by a day. The impact of Hurricane Hillary on the rocket retrieval operation caused an additional four-day delay.
“Due to Hurricane Hillary’s impact on recovery efforts in the Pacific, Starlink’s Falcon 9 launch tonight is cancelled.” SpaceX wrote about X (formerly known as Twitter) Thursday midnight. SpaceX landed on a drone ship over the Pacific about eight minutes after launch and recovered the first stage Falcon 9 booster.
Hurricane Hillary is now a powerful Category 4 storm in the Pacific and was located about 400 miles (640 kilometers) south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. According to the National Hurricane Center. It is expected to make its way to the west coast of Baja Mexico tonight and reach Southern California by Sunday evening (August 20).
Once SpaceX is able to launch the Starlink flight, you will be able to watch it live or in person here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX. via company. Reporting will begin five minutes before launch.
Related: Starlink Satellite Train: How to See and Track It in the Night Sky
Falcon 9’s first stage, if all goes according to plan, is scheduled to return to Earth on Tuesday morning, about eight-and-a-half minutes after launch, onboard SpaceX’s “Of course I Still Love You.” We are going to land.
It will be the 15th time the booster has been launched and landed, officials said. SpaceX mission description. That’s one less than the company’s reuse record of two different early stages of the Falcon 9.
The mission was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday (August 17), the second line of the Starlink doubleheader. The company launched 22 broadband satellites late Wednesday night (August 17) from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. 16).
But SpaceX ended up delaying Thursday’s launch by 24 hours. The company then postponed it until Tuesday for the following reasons. Impact of Hurricane Hillary predicted About the rocket retrieval operation.
SpaceX has so far launched approximately 5,000 Starlink satellites into low earth orbit (LEO). This is certainly a huge number, but it’s probably just the beginning.
Elon Musk’s company has already obtained permission to deploy 12,000 Starlink satellites to LEO, and is seeking approval from international regulators to launch 30,000 more spacecraft on top of that. .
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on August 17th at 11pm EDT with news of a new Target launch date on August 22nd.