SpaceX will launch another large batch of its Starlink internet satellites into orbit early Monday morning (June 12), and you can watch it live.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 53 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off Monday at 3:10 a.m. EST (0710 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly through the company. Coverage is expected to begin about five minutes before launch.
Related: Starlink Satellite Train: How to See and Track It in the Night Sky
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9 first stage will return to Earth about 8.5 minutes after liftoff for a precision landing on SpaceX’s unmanned ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
This will be the ninth launch and landing of this particular booster, SpaceX wrote in a Description of the task.
The rocket’s upper stage will continue to carry 53 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit, eventually deploying there about 65 minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX has launched more than 4,500 Starlink satellites to date, and nearly 4,200 of them are currently in operation, according to the astrophysicist and satellite tracker. Jonathan McDowell.
But the Starlink megaconstellation isn’t complete yet: SpaceX has permission to deploy 12,000 broadband satellites and has applied for approval for another 30,000 on top of that.
Starlink’s early morning liftoff is the first leg of Monday’s double-headed Falcon 9 chart. SpaceX also plans to launch the Transporter 8 rideshare mission Monday at 5:19 PM EST (2119 GMT) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Transporter 8 will send 72 satellites aloft to a variety of customers.
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