SpaceX will launch its 100th Starlink mission of the year on Friday (Oct. 31), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 28 of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellites is scheduled to liftoff from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base on Friday, during a four-hour window that opens at 3:44 p.m. EDT (1944 GMT; 12:44 p.m. local California time).
Starlink, SpaceX‘s internet-beaming network in low Earth orbit (LEO), is by far the largest satellite constellation ever assembled. The company has lofted more than 10,000 Starlink spacecraft to date, and nearly 8,800 of them are active today.
Most of SpaceX’s launches these days go toward building out Starlink even further: The company has flown 138 Falcon 9 missions so far in 2025, and 99 have been Starlink efforts.
Previous Booster 1063 missions
If all goes according to plan on Friday, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth about 8.5 minutes after launch, touching down in the Pacific Ocean on the SpaceX drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You.”
It will be the 29th flight for this particular booster, which is designated 1063. That’s close to the Falcon 9 reuse record, which currently stands at 31 flights.
Meanwhile, the Falcon 9’s upper stage will continue hauling the 29 Starlink satellites to LEO, where they’ll be deployed about an hour after liftoff.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 1:20 p.m. ET on Oct. 30 with the new launch date of Oct. 31.
First Appeared on
Source link
