Lots of lift —
SpaceX targets another Starlink launch Thursday to continue record pace
California company appears likely to launch at least two dozen rockets in 2020.
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Falcon 9 B1060 and 60 Starlink satellites standing on LC-39A in preparation for launch at 9:29an EDT on September 1, 2020.Trevor Mahlmann
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The booster will attempt to land on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship after separating from the 2nd stage.Trevor Mahlmann
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Close-up photograph of the titanium-tipped payload fairing.Trevor Mahlmann
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This will be B1060's 2nd flight.Trevor Mahlmann
SpaceX launched three missions in August—two carrying its own Starlink satellite payloads, and the SAOCOM 1B mission for Argentina. Now, beginning as early as Thursday morning, SpaceX may go for three more launches this month to continue building out its Starlink satellite Internet constellation.
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off at 8:46am EDT (12:46 UTC) Thursday from Kennedy Space Center, carrying a payload of 60 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. This will be the twelfth launch of a large batch of Starlink satellites, although the first 60 satellites launched in May, 2019, were to some extent a test bed for future iterations. After this mission, the company will have placed more than 700 of its satellites into orbit to provide broadband service.
The need to build out a constellation of thousands of satellites, with the eventual goal of providing broadband internet across the globe, has allowed SpaceX to fly its Falcon 9 rocket frequently this year. So far, in 2020, the company has launched 15 missions (this includes the suborbital Crew Dragon in-flight abort test on January 19). Of those, nine have been Starlink missions.
For the remainder of the year the company has a smattering of commercial, NASA, and military launches, highlighted by the Crew-1 mission, occurring no earlier than October 23. On top of this there will be several additional Starlink launches.
With a total of 15 missions through August, the company is on a mathematical pace for 22 or 23 total launches this year. That would exceed the company's previous record of 21 launches in the year 2018, when SpaceX flew out much of a commercial backlog it had accrued during the mid-2010s. However, given the number of planned launches for the rest of the year, it seems plausible SpaceX will launch 25 or more rockets in 2020.
The march toward a record-setting pace in 2020 continues Thursday morning, when the weather conditions are forecast to be good, with an 80 percent chance of "go" conditions.
Listing image by Trevor Mahlmann
Via PaApNews