SpaceX is scheduled to launch another batch of its Starlink satellites to orbit from California early Monday morning (Oct. 20), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites is scheduled to launch from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base Monday, during a four-hour window that opens at 2:24 a.m. EDT (0624 GMT; 10:24 p.m. local California time on Oct. 19).
SpaceX will stream the launch live via its website and X account, beginning about five minutes before launch.
If all goes according to plan today, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth today, landing in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
It will be the 11th launch and touchdown for this particular booster, which carries the designation 1088.
Previous Booster 1088 missions
Meanwhile, the rocket’s upper stage will continue hauling the 28 Starlink satellites to LEO, where they’ll be deployed about 60 minutes after launch.
They’ll join more than 8,600 active satellites in the Starlink megaconstellation, by far the largest network of spacecraft ever assembled.
Editor’s note: This launch was originally targeted for Saturday (Oct. 18). If that target had held, the mission would have lofted the 10,000th Starlink satellite to date, a milestone that the original version of this story highlighted. But the target date was pushed back to Monday (Oct. 20), and this story was updated at 11:25 a.m. ET on Oct. 18 to reflect that change.
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