SpaceX plans to launch 22 Starlink internet satellites on Saturday (January 20), after a previous attempt ended in an unexplained abort.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California during a three-and-a-half-hour window that opens at 9:30 p.m. EDT (6:30 p.m. California; 0230 GMT). GMT). On January 21). Friday's takeoff attempt was aborted less than a minute before the countdown ended.
“Stop trying to launch Falcon 9 tonight,” SpaceX posted on Friday (Jan. 19) on X (formerly Twitter) without adding further details.
You can watch the live broadcast on the Internet From the start of the launch five minutes before take-off x@spacex And on the SpaceX website.
Related: Starlink Space Train: How to See and Track It in the Night Sky
If all goes as planned, the Falcon 9 first stage will return to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff to land aboard the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean.
This will be the sixteenth launch and landing of this booster, according to A SpaceX mission description. Among its previous flights were NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and 10 other Starlink missions.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the Falcon 9 rocket's upper stage will continue to ferry 22 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, deploying them there about 62 minutes after liftoff.
Starlink is SpaceX's massive broadband constellation. It currently consists of more than 5,250 operational spacecraftbut this number is increasing all the time.
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