CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — The weather is looking iffy for SpaceX’s Friday night launch of a Starlink mission.
The Falcon 9 rocket will send up Starlink 6-59 mission from Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, stated SpaceX.
The launch window will open at 8:32 p.m. ET, with backup chances until 11:30 p.m. ET.
However, the weather is a bit iffy. The 45th Weather Squadron is giving a “25% → 5%” against the launch, citing anvil cloud and cumulus cloud rules.
“These will post potential concern for the opening of the primary Friday evening launch window, with an improvement in conditions expected through the window as any convection diminishes,” the squadron stated about the anvil cloud rule.
This means there is a good chance that the launch will be pushed back later in the evening as weather conditions look better.
If the launch is scrubbed, the next attempt will be Saturday at 8:06 p.m. ET, stated SpaceX.
Going up
This is the 20th mission for the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster B1062. Here are the impressive 20 missions B1062 has done before this launch.
- GPS III Space Vehicle 04
- GPS III Space Vehicle 05
- Inspiration4
- Ax-1
- Nilesat 301
- OneWeb Launch 17
- Arabsat’s Badr 8
- 13 Starlink satellite missions
After the stage separation, the first-stage rocket is expected to land on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas that will be in the Atlantic Ocean.
About the mission
The 23 satellites from the Starlink company, owned by SpaceX, will be heading to low-Earth orbit to join the thousands already there.
Dr. Jonathan McDowell, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been recording Starlink satellites.
Before this launch, McDowell documented the following:
- 6,017 are in orbit
- 5,240 are in operational orbit