The Space Coast is set to watch a record 58th launch out over the Atlantic on Saturday night as SpaceX lines up yet another late-night Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral.
A Falcon 9 carrying 23 more of its internet satellites is set to lift off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:23 p.m. with five backup windows from 11:07 p.m. until 2:15 am. Sunday. There are six more backups Sunday night beginning at 9:51 p.m. running through early Monday at 1:50 a.m.
It’s another southerly trajectory flight so will be visible down much of the Florida east coast south of Cape Canaveral after launch.
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts only a 5% chance of poor weather conditions for both days’ opportunities.
The first-stage booster is making its fourth flight with a planned recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
The Space Coast had a record 57 launches in 2022, which it equaled four days ago when SpaceX sent up its last Starlink mission.
SpaceX has been responsible for all but four of the launches from either Cape Canaveral or neighboring Kennedy Space Center with the other four coming from United Launch Alliance and Relativity Space.
SpaceX has also been busy in California tacking on another 22 missions in 2023 including another Starlink launch that already took off early Saturday from Vandenberg Space Force Base. It also has attempted one launch of its new Starship and Falcon Heavy from Texas.
Among Florida and California orbital launches, Elon Musk’s company will have flown 76 times, and remain on a pace to approach 100 launches before the end of the year.
Saturday’s launch would mark the 275th successful orbital launch among its Falcon family of rockets while also gunning for its 238th booster recovery and the 210th time a booster has been reflown.
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