SpaceX launching 23 Starlink satellites tonight on 2nd leg of spaceflight doubleheader (Image Credit: Space.com)
SpaceX is set to launch another batch of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida tonight (May 22), the second mission in less than 24 hours for the company.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 23 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight during a four-hour window that opens at 10:35 p.m. EDT (0235 GMT on May 23).
SpaceX will webcast the launch live 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 drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be the eighth launch and landing for this particular first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description. Among its seven previous liftoffs were three Starlink missions and the Ax-2 and Ax-3 private astronaut missions to the International Space Station.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will carry the 23 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO), deploying them there about 65 minutes after liftoff.
Tonight’s liftoff will be the second of the day for SpaceX. Early this morning, the company launched the NROL-146 mission from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, sending a set of satellites aloft for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.
That was SpaceX’s 52nd orbital launch of the year already. Thirty-six of those missions have been dedicated to building out the huge and ever-growing Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of about 5,950 working satellites.
