Elon Musk-led SpaceX plans to launch 20 Starlink internet satellites

Elon Musk-founded SpaceX plans to launch another set of Starlink internet satellites carrying around 20 Starlink spacecraft on Tuesday morning (October 29).

The 20 Starlink spacecraft, which includes 13 direct-to-cell (DTC) capabilities, will lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base today during an hour-long window that begins at 7:44 a.m. EDT (1144 GMT; 4:44 a.m. local California time). According to IST, the launch will take place at 5:14 pm.

The live streaming of the launch event can be viewed live via X which will begin five minutes before the liftoff.

If everything goes as per plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth in about eight minutes after liftoff. It will touch the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You,” stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

According to SpaceX’s mission description, this would be the 14th launch and landing for this particular booster and the 11th Starlink mission overall.

The upper stage of Falcon 9 will take the Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) where they will be deployed in the next one hour of the liftoff.

SpaceX has already launched over 100 Falcon 9 missions this year, around two-thirds of which ferried the Starlink constellation satellites.

According to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell, SpaceX operates over 6,400 Starlink spacecraft in LEO. Out of these, over 250 are DTC satellites. Business Standard