SpaceX aims for 91st Space Coast launch on Friday night
SpaceX keeps lining up the launch pads set to send up what would be the year’s 91st orbital launch from the Space Coast on Friday night.
A Falcon 9 on the Astranis: From One to Many mission carrying four satellites headed to geosynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during a 229-minute launch window that opens at 10:39 p.m. A backup 129-minute window opens at midnight Sunday.
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts less than 5% chance of bad launch conditions Friday night.
The first-stage booster for the mission is flying for the 17th time and will attempts a recovery landing downrange on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic.
SpaceX has been responsible for all but five of what would be 91 launches from either Cape Canaveral or Kennedy Space Center this year, already besting by October this year the record of 72 set in 2023.
It would be the 67th launch from Cape Canaveral with the other 24 from KSC. For SpaceX, it would be the 86th overall with 84 being the workhorse Falcon 9 and the other two Falcon Heavy rockets.
United Launch Alliance had the other five launches from its two Canaveral launch pads, sending up two Atlas V, two of its new Vulcan Centaur rockets and the final launch of the Delta IV Heavy.
Blue Origin looks to fly its first New Glenn rocket launch before the end of the year still. It’s been sitting on the launch pad at Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 36 awaiting the OK to perform a hot fire test, the final piece of the puzzle before it could attempt liftoff.