SpaceX plans to launch one other batch of its Starlink web satellites early Friday morning (Dec. 15), and you possibly can watch the motion live.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 21 Starlink craft is scheduled to launch from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Friday during a roughly 3.5-hour window that opens at 12:04 a.m. EST (0504 GMT; 9:04 p.m. on Dec. 14 local California time). And a few of those satellites are trailblazers.
“This launch will include the primary six Starlink satellites with Direct to Cell capabilities that may enable mobile network operators all over the world to offer seamless global access to texting, calling, and browsing wherever you might be on land, lakes, or coastal waters,” SpaceX wrote in a mission description.
You possibly can watch the liftoff live via SpaceX’s account on X (formerly referred to as Twitter), starting about quarter-hour before the window opens.
Related: SpaceX Starlink satellites to beam service straight to smartphones
If all goes in response to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical landing about 8.5 minutes after launch on Friday. It’s going to touch down on the droneship “Of Course I Still Love You,” which will probably be stationed within the Pacific Ocean off the California coast.
It’s going to be the primary launch and landing for this particular booster, in response to the SpaceX mission description.
The 21 Starlink satellites, meanwhile, are scheduled to deploy from the Falcon 9’s upper stage into low Earth orbit about 62.5 minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX has already launched greater than 90 orbital missions in 2023, plus two test flights of its giant, next-generation Starship Mars rocket.
Many of the launch motion has been dedicated to constructing out Starlink, SpaceX’s broadband megaconstellation. The network currently consists of greater than 5,100 energetic satellites and, as Friday’s planned liftoff shows, it’s growing on a regular basis.