Replace Could 4, 5:15 a.m. EDT: SpaceX landed its first stage booster on its droneship.
SpaceX launched its largest batch of Starlink V2 Mini satellites up to now in a predawn Falcon 9 flight on Sunday.
Onboard the Starlink 6-84 mission are 29 of what the corporate calls Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites, which had been first publicly talked about within the firm’s 2024 Progress Report. These satellites are about 225 kg lighter than the earlier variations of the Starlink V2 Mini.
Liftoff from Launch Advanced 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy House Heart occurred Sunday, Could 4, at 4:54 a.m. EDT (0854 UTC). The rocket flew in a south-easterly trajectory as soon as it left the pad.
On Friday, the forty fifth Climate Squadron forecast a 55 % likelihood for favorable climate in the course of the launch window. Meteorologists expressed concern with anvil clouds, cumulus clouds and customarily thick clouds.
“On Saturday, southerly move will considerably enhance moisture over the Florida peninsula out forward of the approaching entrance,” launch climate officers wrote. “Though the boundary is not going to attain the world till nicely after the launch window, westerly winds aloft will doubtless herald mid to upper-level clouds that develop alongside the entrance.”
SpaceX used the Falcon 9 first stage booster, tail quantity 1078, to launch the Starlink 6-84 mission. It beforehand launched NASA’s Crew-6, USSF-124, Bluebird 1-5 and 15 different batches of Starlink satellites.
Slightly greater than eight minutes after liftoff, B1078 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas,’ marking the 107th touchdown on that droneship and the 441st booster touchdown up to now.
