SpaceX to launch 23 Starlink broadband satellites from Florida this evening (Image Credit: Space.com)
SpaceX plans to launch 23 more of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida’s Space Coast on Wednesday evening (Oct. 23).
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 23 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight, during a 3.5-hour window that opens at 5:47 p.m. EDT (2147 GMT). SpaceX had been targeting Tuesday (Oct. 22) but called that try off due to weather concerns.
SpaceX will livestream the launch on X, beginning about five minutes before liftoff.
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff, landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” in the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be the 18th launch and landing for this particular booster, and its 13th Starlink mission, according to a SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will haul the Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), deploying them there about 65 minutes after liftoff.
Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky
SpaceX currently operates more than 6,400 Starlink satellites in LEO, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
But that number is ever-growing, as Wednesday’s planned launch shows. SpaceX has conducted 98 Falcon 9 missions in 2024 so far, and more than two-thirds of them have been devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 9:05 p.m. ET on Oct. 22 with news of the new target launch date of Oct. 23.