Current News

/

ArcaMax

SpaceX launch today marks 35th on the Space Coast

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on

Published in News & Features

SpaceX keeps lining them up and knocking them out as it targets an early afternoon launch from Kennedy Space Center today.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying another 23 of the company’s Starlink internet satellites is aiming for 2:10 p.m. liftoff, having passed over initial opportunities, from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A with backup options until the end of the four-hour launch window at 2:42 p.m. and more on Thursday beginning at 10:16 a.m.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 90% chance for good conditions both today and Thursday.

It marks the third launch of the first-stage booster which previously flew on the Crew-8 human spaceflight and one Starlink mission. It will aim for a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic Ocean on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

This marks the 35th launch from the Space Coast with all but two coming from SpaceX.

 

United Launch Alliance had the other two launches, and is awaiting its third with the Crew Flight Test mission to send up astronauts on board Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner atop an Atlas V. Teams scrubbed that launch attempt on Monday night because of a valve issue on the Atlas V’s upper Centaur stage.

Teams decided to roll the Atlas V back to ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility to replace the valve and now that launch is targeting no earlier than May 17.

_____


©2024 Orlando Sentinel. Visit at orlandosentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus