SpaceX plans to launch yet another batch of its Starlink broadband satellites today (Dec. 13).
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 22 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base today during a 3.5-hour window that opens at 2:28 p.m. EDT (1928 GMT; 11:28 a.m. local time in California).
SpaceX will webcast the action via X, beginning about five minutes before launch.
If all goes to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical touchdown on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” about eight minutes after liftoff.
It will be the ninth liftoff and touchdown for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. Six of its eight flights to date have been Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will deploy the 22 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit 60 minutes after launch.
Related: Starlink satellite train: how to see and track it in the night sky
SpaceX has launched more than 120 Falcon 9 missions so far in 2024. Nearly 70% of them have been devoting to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of more than 6,800 operational spacecraft.
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