SpaceX to Launch 28 Starlink V2 Mini Satellites Thursday Night

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX plans to launch 28 optimized Starlink V2 Mini satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday night. The Starlink 6-74 mission is targeted for liftoff at 9:52 p.m. EDT (0152 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40.

The Falcon 9 rocket will follow a south-easterly trajectory after leaving the launch pad. Spaceflight Now will provide live coverage starting an hour before the launch.

The 45th Weather Squadron has given a forecast indicating a greater than 95 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for the launch. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster, tail number B1069, will fly for its 23rd time, having previously launched missions such as CRS-24 and Eutelsat Hotbird 13F.

Approximately eight and a half minutes after liftoff, B1069 will aim for a landing on the droneship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean east of the Bahamas. If successful, this will mark the 105th landing on this specific droneship and the overall 435th booster landing achieved by SpaceX.

The deployment of the 28 satellites is scheduled to occur one hour and five minutes into the flight. This launch comes as SpaceX recently expanded its Starlink service to include the eastern Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

In addition to the Starlink mission, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket successfully took off earlier this week from Kennedy Space Center, carrying research and weather observation payloads for the U.S. Air Force. The Falcon Heavy launched at 10:24 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, with both side boosters landing successfully back at Cape Canaveral.

The upcoming launch follows a hurdle that teams had to address before the Falcon 9’s liftoff, related to a chilled water loop on the rocket’s structure at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.