SpaceX lines up evening launch from Cape Canaveral
A SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral this evening would be the 30th of the year on the Space Coast.
A Falcon 9 carrying a communications satellite for Indonesia is set to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during a nearly three-hour window that opens at 6:04 p.m.
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts better weather as the window progresses, predicting a 60% chance for good conditions that will improve to 75% chance. A similar forecast is in place if the launch had to delay to Monday.
If it launches, the first-stage booster for the mission would be making its 12th flight, and the company will attempt its recovery downrange on its droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic.
The SATRA satellite for the Indonesian government and Indonesian satellite operator PSN is headed to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The satellite will provide broadband internet and communications capability for public use facilities in Indonesia’s rural regions.
If it launches, SpaceX will have flown 29 of the 30 launches so far this year from the Space Coast, with the only other coming from Relativity Space and its launch of the 3D-printed Terran 1 back in March.
United Launch Alliance, though, is scheduled for its first launch of the year early Wednesday.
On what will be the second-to-last launch of a Delta IV Heavy, ULA looks to fly the NROL-68 mission to send up a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 37 is slated for 3:29 a.m.
The launch cadence keeps a pace that would break the 57 launches on the Space Coast seen in 2022.