After delay, SpaceX Starlink mission rockets into the Cape Canaveral sky
SpaceX's Starlink 10-2 mission finally rocketed into the Florida afternoon sky on Sunday, setting the stage for what could be a good week for watching rocket launches.
Up next: the massive thrust power of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy lifting into orbit a hurricane-hunting weather satellite. The Falcon Heavy is three SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets combined into one triple-core heavy lifter. The GOES-U weather satellite is as big as a small school bus and so needs the big lift power of the Falcon Heavy with its 27 Merlin engines generating five million pounds of thrust.
The Falcon Heavy is currently targeting a Tuesday launch at 5:16 p.m., the opening of a two-hour window. Weather remains a concern with only a 30 percent chance of weather favorable to launch.
Meanwhile, the 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites bolted into the white clouds over the Space Coast Sunday, getting off the ground before another storm system had the chance to move in.
Liftoff came right on schedule, as weather had improved to 70 percent favorable. However, a storm system lurked off the coast to the south. Flying northeast, the rocket was able to avoid the concerning weather.
Approximately eight-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean.
When is the next launch? Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule in Florida
Why was SpaceX Starlink 10-2 initially delayed?
Sunday's launch was the same mission that suffered a rare T-0 abort on Friday, June 14. After that scrub, SpaceX moved the rocket and Starlink payload from the launch pad due to hardware issues, SpaceX's vice president of launch Kiko Dontchev said on X (formerly Twitter).
That allowed SpaceX to proceed with Friday's launch of a European satellite, the Astra 1P/SES-24 mission.
SpaceX Falcon 9 booster problems
Before SpaceX tried again to the get the Starlink mission off the ground, SpaceX apparently switched the Falcon 9 first stage booster. SpaceX always discloses which booster it's using, and when this mission was originally scheduled to launch, SpaceX said it was launching on a booster that had previously launched SES-22, ispace's HAKUTO-R MISSION 1, Amazonas-6, CRS-27, Bandwagon-1 and 10 Starlink missions.
However, for Sunday's attempt of this mission, the booster used was stated to have launched the NASA Crew-6 mission, mPOWER-B, USSF-124, and seven other Starlink missions, indicating the company changed out the booster.
No other official statements have been released by SpaceX.
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Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at [email protected] or on X: @brookeofstars.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Falcon 9 launches into the clouds as SpaceX gets mission into orbit