SpaceX launching 23 Starlink satellites to orbit early Aug. 2 (Image Credit: Space.com)
SpaceX will launch another batch of its Starlink satellites to orbit early Friday (Aug. 2), continuing the company’s bounceback from a July 11 failure.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 23 Starlink craft is scheduled to lift off from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, during a four-hour window that opens at 12:19 a.m. EDT (0419 GMT).
SpaceX will livestream the launch via its X account, beginning about five minutes before liftoff.
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth about eight minutes after launch, landing on SpaceX’s A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Related: Starlink satellite train: how to see and track it in the night sky
It will be the 12th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. Eight of its 11 flights to date have been Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will haul the 23 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, deploying them there about 64 minutes after launch.
Friday’s launch will be SpaceX’s fourth in less than a week, following a Starlink liftoff on July 27 and two more on July 28. Those three launches broke a two-week drought for the company, which was grounded for a spell after a July 11 Falcon 9 failure.
That mishap occurred after a Falcon 9 upper stage sprang a leak of liquid oxygen, preventing the vehicle from performing a planned orbit-raising burn. Twenty Starlink satellites were lost as a result.
SpaceX identified the cause of the leak as a crack in a line for a pressure sensor in the upper stage’s liquid-oxygen system, and says it has taken measures to prevent the problem from recurring.
