Update 5:03 p.m. EST (2203 UTC): Added details about the primary stage booster.
SpaceX is getting ready for its remaining two Falcon 9 launches of November, utilizing launch pads in each Florida and California.
First up is the Starlink 6-65 mission, which is able to seemingly add one other 24 Starlink satellites to the corporate’s quickly rising mega-constellation. Liftoff is ready for no sooner than midnight (0500 UTC) on Nov. 30.
Spaceflight Now may have stay protection starting about an hour previous to liftoff.
Heading into the midnight mission, the forty fifth Weather Squadron forecast an 85 p.c likelihood for favorable climate at liftoff, citing thick clouds together with gusty winds as potential issues.
“[Precipitation] is anticipated to be carried out heading into the first launch window at midnight, however the query of clouds stays,” launch climate officers wrote of their forecast. “Most fashions nonetheless present an in depth post-frontal cloud deck hanging round, probably flirting with the freezing stage, and thus changing into a launch climate concern.
“Factors that play into this may also embody how rapidly winds above the floor swing out of the north-northeast and reinforce the post-frontal inversion. The most problematic cloud decks will push south by the window, although a low-topped stratocumulus deck will seemingly stay. Post-frontal winds may also be a watch merchandise, although the strongest winds will happen a number of hours forward of the window with speeds, whereas remaining breezy, diminishing by the late evening.”
The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail quantity B1083 within the SpaceX fleet, will launch for a sixth time. It beforehand supported the launches of Crew-8, Polaris Dawn, CRS-31 and two Starlink missions.
Somewhat greater than eight minutes after liftoff, B1083 will land on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ If profitable, this would be the one hundredth booster touchdown for JRTI and the 376th booster touchdown to this point.
SpaceX is poised to launch one other Falcon 9 rocket as quickly as about three hours after the Starlink 6-65 mission. The NROL-126 mission is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This would be the newest flight for the National Reconnaissance Office as a part of what it calls its proliferated structure. The payload on this launch, believed to be the federal government variant of Starlink satellites, referred to as ‘Starshield,’ would be the fifth such batch launched this yr.
