SpaceX lines up pair of Space Coast launches for the weekend

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX has launches set for Saturday and Sunday from the Space Coast.

First up from is a Falcon 9 on the Galileo L12 mission carrying global navigation satellites for the European Commission from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A targeting 8:34 p.m. Saturday with a backup Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

The first-stage booster is flying for a record-tying 20th time, but will be expended getting the payload to medium-Earth orbit.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 75% chance for good conditions Saturday, which improves to 80% on Sunday.

The second launch this weekend is planned for Sunday when a Falcon 9 carrying 23 Starlink satellites aims to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 targeting the opening of a four-hour window from 5:50-9:50 p.m. with a backup Monday during a four-hour window that opens at 5:25 p.m.

The first-stage booster is flying for the 13th time and will attempt a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic.

These mark the 31st and 32nd launches of 2024 from the Space Coast, all but two of which have been by SpaceX.

United Launch Alliance flew the other two, with the first ever Vulcan Centaur launch in January and the final Delta IV Heavy launch earlier this month.

It has its third lined up for May 6, though, and with its third different rocket when an Atlas V is slated to launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner at 10:34 p.m. from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41 with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the International Space Station.

The pair arrived to KSC on Thursday to prepare for what will be the first crewed mission of Starliner, which is aiming to join SpaceX’s Crew Dragon as one of two spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to provide ferry service to and from the ISS.