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posted by martyb on Thursday September 03 2020, @12:01AM   Printer-friendly
[Ed. note: per community request, this story is in addition to our regular story cadence. It is provided so that those who are interested will have an opportunity to plan ahead to watch the launch. Launch is scheduled for 12h45m from when this story goes "live". --martyb]

SpaceX targets another Starlink launch Thursday to continue record pace:

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off at 8:46am EDT (12:46 UTC) Thursday from Kennedy Space Center while carrying a payload of 60 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. This will be the 12th launch of a large batch of Starlink satellites, although the first 60 satellites launched in May 2019 were, to some extent, a test bed for future iterations. After this mission, the company will have placed more than 700 of its satellites into orbit to provide broadband service.

[...] With a total of 15 missions through August, SpaceX is on a mathematical pace for 22 or 23 total launches this year. That would exceed the company's previous record of 21 launches in the year 2018, when SpaceX flew out much of a commercial backlog it had accrued during the mid-2010s. However, given the number of planned launches for the rest of the year, it seems plausible SpaceX will launch 25 or more rockets in 2020.

The march toward a record-setting pace in 2020 continues Thursday morning, when the weather conditions are forecast to be good, with an 80 percent chance of "go" conditions.

Live stream usually starts about 15-20 minutes before scheduled launch. YouTube link.

Separately, here are details from SpaceFlight Now's launch schedule:

Date: Sept. 3
Mission: Falcon 9 • Starlink 11
Launch time: 1246 GMT (8:46 a.m. EDT)
Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Description: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the 12th batch of approximately 60 satellites for SpaceX's Starlink broadband network, a mission designated Starlink 11


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