SpaceX gears up for second launch this week with rideshare mission

CAP CANAVERAL, Florida – After successfully launching its own payload from Florida earlier this week, SpaceX is preparing another Falcon 9 rocket to take off with satellites from several customers, including DARPA, NASA and others from its own Starlink satellites.

The SpaceX carpooling mission includes payloads from government and private customers as well as a dozen smaller nanosatellites. The rocket will take off from Launch Complex 40 of the Cape Canaveral space station. The launch window opens at 9:40 am on Saturday. It was delayed by Friday morning.

The mission, known as Transporter-1, also includes a last-minute addition of 10 Starlink satellites, having received approval from the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month to include them.

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The 45th Space Wing predicts the current concern for the launch window will be heavy cloud cover. Space Force forecasters give the launch window a 60% favorable time chance. A front will bring showers to the Space Coast on Saturday morning.

After launch, the Falcon 9 will head south toward polar orbit, a rare trajectory sending the rocket off the coast of Florida. Due to the unusual trajectory of SpaceX’s droneship, Of course I Still Love You, will not be north of the launch site while waiting to catch the rocket thruster, but due south into the Atlantic Ocean.

Earlier in the week, another Falcon 9 launched 60 Starlink Internet broadcast satellites from the Cape Canaveral space station. The successful delivery to low earth orbit was the 17th part of SpaceX’s constellation designed to provide a global internet even in remote parts of the world. There were nearly 1,000 Starlink satellites already in orbit.

SpaceX plans to continue to develop this constellation this year with launches every two weeks.

Meanwhile, in Texas, SpaceX crews are working on another test flight of the company’s interplanetary spacecraft under development at the Boca Chica site. Starship’s latest flight wowed online viewers around the world when the prototype spacecraft was launched, flipped over, and descended for an explosive landing.

This weekend’s launch will mark the third for SpaceX this year.

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