SpaceX plans to launch another set of its Starlink Internet satellites into orbit tonight (Aug. 26), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink spacecraft was scheduled to lift off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 9:05 p.m. EDT (0105 GMT on Aug. 27) on Saturday. According to astrophysicist and satellite observer Jonathan McDowell, the SpaceX launch will bring the total number of Starlink satellites launched to date to over 5,000. (calc Currently it is 4,983.)
You can watch the liftoff live on Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or live through the company. Coverage is expected to begin five minutes before kickoff.
Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky
If all goes according to plan, Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth on Saturday: It’s scheduled to land aboard a SpaceX drone, read instructions 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
Step one is the third launch and landing for this particular booster SpaceX mission description.
Falcon 9’s upper stage will continue to fly, eventually placing the 22 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) 65 minutes after launch.
Saturday’s Starlink launch will continue the start of another SpaceX mission from Florida’s Space Coast: The company aims to launch the four-astronaut Crew-7 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station. Crew-7 was scheduled to land Friday morning (Aug. 25), but SpaceX pushed it back 24 hours to conduct additional analyses.
Five thousand Starlink satellites are to be confirmed, but the number is likely to grow exponentially in the future. SpaceX has permission to deploy 12,000 Starlink spacecraft in LEO, and has applied for about 30,000 more.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with a new publication date of August 26. SpaceX was targeting August 25 for Starlink liftoff.
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