SpaceX called off the launch of a new fleet of Starlink internet satellites from a California pad early Wednesday (April 26) due to landing concerns with the mission’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The Falcon 9 rocket, which is carrying 46 Starlink satellites, was scheduled to lift off from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base at 9:40 a.m. EDT (1340 GMT; 6:40 a.m. local California time), but the attempt was aborted with T-16 seconds to go.
“Scrub was due to probability of landing failure,” a SpaceX official said during live commentary, after the countdown was halted. The launch has been delayed to Thursday (April 27) for the same launch time, SpaceX officials confirmed, and follows an earlier delay from an April 25 target. You can watch the Starlink launch live online, courtesy of SpaceX, beginning about 15 minutes before liftoff.
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The Falcon 9 first stage is expected to return to Earth 8.5 minutes after liftoff to land on the deck of the SpaceX droneship Of Course I Still Love You, stationed off the California coast. This will be the 13th flight of this particular booster, which has already flown two NASA astronaut flights, three Starlink missions and seven other commercial missions.
SpaceX did not immediately provide details on why the rocket was not expected to make the landing. Conditions were quite foggy during the launch window, however.
Starlink is SpaceX’s large and fast-growing megaconstellation of satellites. It currently has about 4,000 operational satellites, but that number could soar to more than 40,000 once complete.
While Starlink did not make its launch window today, SpaceX has another rocket aiming to launch its own orbital mission later this evening.
The company’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket will launch for on its sixth mission tonight at 7:29 p.m. EDT (2329 GMT), carrying two commercial satellites toward geostationary orbit. There is a 57-minute launch window available and you can watch the whole thing live.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a book about space medicine. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
