SpaceX plans to launch 24 of its Starlink web satellites from Florida early this morning (Nov. 14) on the second half of a spaceflight doubleheader.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the 24 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today during a four-hour window that opens at 5:33 a.m. EST (0933 GMT). That is just five hours after one other Falcon 9 launched 20 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
SpaceX will webcast the liftoff live via X, starting about five minutes before launch.
If all goes in line with plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff today, landing on the SpaceX droneship “Just Read the Instructions,” which shall be stationed within the Atlantic Ocean.
It’ll be the 18th launch and landing for this particular booster, in line with a SpaceX mission description. Nine of its previous 17 flights were Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will haul the 20 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), deploying them there about 65 minutes after liftoff.
The large and ever-growing Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of greater than 6,560 lively satellites, keeps SpaceX very busy today.
Elon Musk’s company has launched greater than 100 Falcon 9 missions in 2024, about two-thirds of them dedicated to constructing out the enormous broadband network in LEO.
