SpaceX postponed the launch from California until Friday after canceling a Starlink delivery mission with a Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday. Launch time for the Starlink 7-11 mission has been rescheduled to 6:15 p.m. PST (9:15 p.m. EST) (0215 UTC).
After the rocket was loaded at Vandenberg Space Force Base with propellants, the business decided not to proceed with the launch on Thursday. It provided no explanation for the hold-up.
This will be SpaceX’s third launch from the Golden State and its seventh overall this year. 22 Starlink V2 Mini satellites are on board, adding to the constellation of more than 5,300 satellites now in orbit.
The mission will be covered live by Spaceflight Now around half an hour before takeoff.
On this voyage, the SpaceX fleet’s first stage booster, tail number B1063, will launch and land for the sixteenth time. It has previously supported ten Starlink flights, the Transporter-7 rideshare mission, and the launch of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft.
B1080 is scheduled to land on the droneship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California, approximately 8.5 minutes after takeoff. This will be SpaceX’s 208th droneship landing to date and OCISLY’s 80th booster landing.
The business is still keeping an eye on the Ax-3 mission, which took off Thursday afternoon from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Crew Dragon Freedom, carrying four astronauts, is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station on Saturday morning.
Topics #Falcon 9 #NASA #Rocket #SpaceX