SpaceX is set to launch another batch of its broadband satellites to orbit this evening (March 25).
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today during a three-hour window that opens at 5:52 p.m. EDT (2152 GMT).
You can watch the launch live via SpaceX‘s account on X, beginning about five minutes before the window opens.
Related: Starlink satellite train: How to see and track it in the night sky
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical landing about 8.5 minutes after liftoff on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be the eighth launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will deploy the 23 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) about 65 minutes after liftoff.
Today’s launch will be the 29th Falcon 9 mission of 2024 already, and the 19th devoted to building out the Starlink megaconstellation. To date, SpaceX has launched 6,054 Starlink satellites, 5,587 of which are currently operational in LEO, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.