SpaceX plans to launch 22 more of its Starlink internet satellites from California early on Monday morning (Nov. 20).
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base Monday during a four-hour window that opens at 1:33 a.m. EST (0633 GMT; 10:33 p.m. on Nov. 19 local California time).
You can watch the action live via SpaceX’s account on X (formerly known as Twitter). Coverage will begin about five minutes before launch.
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9‘s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical landing about 8.5 minutes after launch on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean.
It will be the 15th launch and landing for this rocket’s first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description. That flight resume includes nine other Starlink launches as well as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, a NASA mission that successfully slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid in September 2022.
The 22 Starlink satellites, meanwhile, will deploy from the Falcon 9’s upper stage into low Earth orbit about 62.5 minutes after liftoff.
Monday morning’s launch will wrap up a very busy weekend for SpaceX. The company also lofted 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Friday night (Nov. 17).
And on Saturday, SpaceX launched the second-ever test flight of Starship, the giant next-generation system it’s developing to help humanity set up shop on the moon and Mars. Starship flew well at first, reaching a maximum altitude of about 91 miles (148 kilometers), but the mission ended about eight minutes after liftoff with a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” — SpaceX lingo for an explosion.
Monday morning’s launch was originally targeted for Sunday, but the company scrubbed the attempt after propellant loading had begun.
Credit: Space.com
