SpaceX will launch 22 of its Starlink web satellites to orbit tonight (Aug. 31), and you possibly can watch the motion live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 7:52 p.m. EDT (2352 GMT).
Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the corporate. Coverage is predicted to start about five minutes before launch.
Related: Starlink satellite train: The right way to see and track it within the night sky
If all goes in keeping with plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth, touching down about 8.5 minutes after liftoff on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will likely be stationed within the Atlantic Ocean.
It would be the seventh launch and landing for this particular booster, in keeping with a SpaceX mission description. The corporate reuse record, by the best way, is 16 flights, held by two different Falcon 9 first stages.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage will carry on flying tonight, eventually deploying the 22 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) about 65 minutes after liftoff.
Tonight’s Starlink launch was presupposed to be the second half of a SpaceX doubleheader: One other Falcon 9 was scheduled to launch 13 satellites for the U.S. Space Force from Cape Canaveral this morning.
SpaceX scrubbed that planned launch, nevertheless, resulting from an undisclosed issue. The corporate is now targeting Friday (Sept. 1) at 11:26 a.m. EDT (1526 GMT) for the Space Force liftoff. You may watch it here at Space.com when the time comes.