SpaceX launching 20 satellites from California tonight on 2nd leg of Starlink doubleheader (Image Credit: Space.com)
SpaceX is set to launch 20 more of its Starlink internet satellites tonight (May 8), on the second leg of a spaceflight doubleheader for the company.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Starlink craft — 13 of which will be able to beam service directly to cell phones — is scheduled to lift off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base tonight, during a nearly three-hour window that opens at 10:48 p.m. EDT (7:48 p.m. local California time; 0248 GMT on May 9).
SpaceX will livestream the launch via its X account, beginning about five minutes before the window opens.
Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky
The Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth about 8 minutes after launch, if all goes according to plan. It will touch down on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean.
It will be the 4th launch and landing for this particular first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will continue carrying the Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), where they will be deployed about 61.5 minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX already launched a Starlink mission today, sending 23 of the satellites to LEO from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Spaceflight doubleheaders are far from a novelty for SpaceX these days. On March 30, for example, the company launched two missions — a Starlink batch and the Eutelsat 36D telecommunications satellite — less than four hours apart, both of them from Florida’s Space Coast.
