Covering All Things Florida
SpaceX weathered lightning in the area until skies cleared early this evening, allowing the company to launch the Turksat-6A mission aboard a Falcon 9. Originally scheduled for 5:20 PM EDT, Turksat liftoff was delayed several times until 7:30 PM when the afternoon’s storms were far away enough to allow the rocket to safely ascend towards orbit.
SpaceX is planning to launch a Falcon 9 carrying a Turkish telecommunications satellite later Monday afternoon from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, weather permitting. The launch window opens at 05:20 PM EDT and extends over four hours to 09:43 PM EDT Monday.
The upcoming Polaris Dawn mission is poised to make history as the first commercial spaceflight to include a spacewalk. Billionaire Jared Isaacman is funding the mission, which is scheduled to launch no earlier than July 31, 2024, from Florida’s Space Coast.
SpaceX successfully launched another group of Starlink satellites into orbit this morning from its Space Launch Complex 40 facility to open the second half of the year. Liftoff was at 4:55 AM EDT.
SpaceX plans to add more satellites to their Starlink constellation in the wee hours Wednesday morning with the Starlink 8-9 mission set to depart Space Launch Complex 40. Liftoff is currently targeted for 02:57 AM EDT with a launch window extending to 06:01:00 AM EDT the same day. If weather or technical reasons cause a scrub, an additional opportunities are also available on Sunday, July 7 starting at 12:28 AM EDT.
The booster used for the mission is Booster B1073, the same one that experienced an abort-at-ignition on its last launch attempt. After completing its boost cycle, B1073 on the company’s automated landing barge ‘A Shortfall Of Gravitas’ which is stationed at sea in the Atlantic Ocean offshore of the Carolinas. Since the booster will not be returning to the launch site, there will be no sonic booms on the Space Coast.
Kennedy Space Center, Florida — SpaceX’s ambitious plans to repurpose Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center for its Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle program have sparked a wide array of concerns from various public and private stakeholders.
The day is coming, sooner rather than later, when the ISS will have outlived its design life. NASA sees it coming and has already started the wheels turning to send the multi-national behemoth to a fiery end.
Only 10 minutes into Tuesday’s 2-hour launch window, a SpaceX Falcon heavy lifted off carrying the last of a series of new weather satellites to orbit. The GOES-U weather satellite launch was the last of a series designated GOES-R.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is set to launch its latest geostationary weather satellite, GOES-U, on June 25, 2024, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission, the final installment in the GOES-R series, will dramatically advance weather observation and environmental monitoring technology.
SpaceX will attempt to finally launch Starlink 10-2 tomorrow, after a pair of weather-related scrubs and one abort-at-ignition last week. After the hard shutdown, the company has re-assigned a new booster for the launch and returned the one originally slated for the mission to Hangar X for closer inspection and repairs.
It looked like any other day with any other Falcon 9 launch…until it didn’t.
At T-0, Falcon 9’s Merlin engines ignited, but almost immediately shut down with the rocket still on the pad at Space Launch 40. This is a rare occurrence for a SpaceX launch, and it appeared to be an automated shutdown initiated by the rocket itself at a time when the onboard computer system is in control.
If you were watching SpaceX’s live launch coverage of the Starship launch this morning on any one of a several dozen Youtube Channels, you may have gotten a big surprise. The channels, which appeared high in Youtube’s rankings, carried SpaceX’s legitimate broadcast down to just a few minutes before launch when they smoothly transitioned to a video of Elon Musk, presumably at Starbase.
