A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is poised to launch from Florida’s Space Coast this evening (Sept. 29), carrying 22 Starlink satellites to orbit.
The Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today at 6:39 p.m. EDT (2239 GMT).
You’ll be able to watch it live via SpaceX’s account on X (formerly Twitter); coverage will start about five minutes before liftoff.
Related: Starlink satellite train: The way to see and track it within the night sky
If all goes in accordance with plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth for a vertical landing on a SpaceX drone ship at sea about 8.5 minutes after launch.
It would be the tenth liftoff and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage, in accordance with a SpaceX mission description. The corporate’s rocket-reuse record is 17 flights, held by two different boosters.
The 22 Starlink satellites, meanwhile, will deploy from the Falcon 9’s upper stage into low Earth orbit (LEO) about 65 minutes after launch.
This evening’s mission will likely be the 69th orbital launch for SpaceX in 2023. About 60% of those flights have been dedicated to constructing out the corporate’s Starlink network.
The megaconstellation currently consists of nearly 4,800 operational satellites, and the number will proceed to grow far into the long run. SpaceX has permission to deploy 12,000 of the craft in LEO and has applied for approval for one more 30,000 as well.