SpaceX aims to launch another batch of its Starlink internet satellites tonight (May 2), on the second half of a planned spaceflight doubleheader.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 23 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight during a 3.5-hour window that opens at 9:49 p.m. EDT (0149 GMT on May 3). SpaceX will webcast the action via its X account, beginning about five minutes before the window opens.
The Starlink launch will be SpaceX’s second of the day, if all goes according to plan. A Falcon 9 is scheduled to loft two Earth-observation satellites for the company Maxar from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base today at 2:36 p.m. EDT (1836 GMT).
Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky
After launching the Starlink satellites tonight, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical landing on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be the 19th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. That’s just one shy of the company’s rocket reuse record, which was set last month.
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Starlink, SpaceX’s broadband constellation in low Earth orbit, currently consists of more than 5,800 active satellites.
A fair number of those spacecraft have gone up this year; SpaceX has launched 43 orbital missions so far in 2024, and 29 of them have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation.