Replace 11:53 a.m. EDT (1553 UTC): New T-0 launch time from SpaceX.
SpaceX is trying to comply with up a double launch day on Friday, Oct. 13, with a night launch of a Falcon 9 rocket, which can ship up one other 22 Starlink V2 Mini satellites to low Earth orbit.
The mission from House Launch Complicated 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral House Power Station is concentrating on a liftoff at 7:52 p.m. EDT (2352 UTC) Tuesday. There’s a backup launch alternative at 8:36 p.m. EDT (0036 UTC on Oct. 18). There are additionally six backup alternatives on Wednesday, Oct. 18, starting from 4:55 p.m. EDT (2055 UTC) till 8:23 p.m. EDT (0023 UTC on Oct. 19).
The Starlink Group 6-23 mission comes simply 4 days and 51 minutes following the final mission to launch from SLC-40, the Starlink Group 6-22 mission, which launched Friday night at 7:01 p.m. EDT (2301 UTC).
With a profitable launch on Tuesday night, SpaceX can have accomplished its 74th launch of 2023. Put one other manner, which means it has launched on common as soon as roughly each 3.92 days. The corporate additionally acknowledged in a publish on the weekend on the social media website X that following Friday’s Starlink launch, SpaceX has despatched greater than 900 metric tons to orbit this 12 months.
Highlights from Friday’s Falcon 9 launch of twenty-two @Starlink satellites. SpaceX has delivered greater than 900 metric tons to orbit to this point this 12 months pic.twitter.com/m2Bx81642l
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 15, 2023
That final launch introduced SpaceX one step nearer to having 5,000 satellites on orbit. In response to knowledge compiled by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and skilled on spaceflight exercise, of the 5,265 Starlink satellites launched to LEO thus far, 4,905 of them are nonetheless in orbit and 4,874 are presently working.
There are presently 467 Starlink satellites which have been launched to the present Group 6 shell of the constellation of which 448 are listed as “working.”
This all comes as SpaceX is pushing in the direction of its second built-in flight check of its Starship rocket from its Starbase launch and testing website in South Texas. The corporate restacked the higher stage, dubbed Ship 25, onto Booster 9 forward of a deliberate moist costume rehearsal at a but to be introduced date.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not but issued a launch license for the IFT-2 mission. SpaceX will use Starship to launch its Starlink Model 2 satellites, although in a hearth chat at a current convention, founder Elon Musk referenced Model 3 satellites, so it’s unclear if the corporate is renaming the kind of satellites that Starship will launch.
“I feel there’s a great probability we begin deploying Starlink V3 satellites subsequent 12 months, roughly a 12 months from now,” Musk mentioned throughout his Oct. 5 remarks.
Starship totally stacked whereas group prepares for a launch rehearsal. We proceed to work with the FAA on a launch license pic.twitter.com/1uJdDmCouI
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 16, 2023
