SpaceX will launch 22 of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit tonight (Aug. 31), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 10:21 p.m. EDT (0221 GMT on Sept. 1).
Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via 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’s first stage will come back to Earth, touching down about 8.5 minutes after liftoff on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be the seventh launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. The company reuse record, by the way, is 16 flights, held by two different Falcon 9 first stages.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage will keep on flying tonight, eventually deploying the 22 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) about 65 minutes after liftoff.
RELATED STORIES:
Tonight’s Starlink launch was supposed to be the second half of a SpaceX doubleheader: Another Falcon 9 was scheduled to launch 13 satellites for the U.S. Space Force from Cape Canaveral this morning.
SpaceX scrubbed that planned launch, however, due to an undisclosed issue. The company is now targeting Friday (Sept. 1) at 11:26 a.m. EDT (1526 GMT) for the Space Force liftoff. You can watch it here at Space.com when the time comes.
