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SpaceX California launch postponed by two days – Spaceflight Now

File: A Falcon 9 rocket is ready to launch a Starlink mission. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX delayed the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from California on Wednesday, just hours after it canceled a Falcon 9 launch from Florida.

Launch from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at the Vandenberg Space Force base is now scheduled for Friday at 10:16 p.m. PST (1:16 a.m. EST, 0616 UTC on Saturday). SpaceX did not immediately provide an explanation for the two-day delay.

The Starlink 9-10 mission will add another 20 satellites to the growing mega-constellation in low Earth orbit. These include 13 satellites that have direct-to-cell functions.

Spaceflight Now's live broadcast begins approximately 30 minutes before launch.



The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, tail number B1081 in the SpaceX fleet, will launch for the eleventh time. His previous missions included the launch of the Crew-7 astronaut mission to the International Space Station, the CRS-29 cargo flight to the ISS, and NASA's PACE mission.

Once it leaves the launch site, the Falcon 9 rocket will fly on a southeasterly trajectory along the coasts of California and Mexico. Just over eight minutes after launch, B1081 is scheduled to land on SpaceX's Of Course I Still Love You drone ship, which is stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

The 13 Starlink satellites onboard the mission with DTC capabilities will also bring the total number of satellites launched to 285. Following the recent launch of these satellites in late October, Ben Longmier, SpaceX's senior director of satellite engineering, said they were close to completing this first segment of the DTC Starlink constellation.

“We will continue to roll out and improve the service thereafter to improve coverage and latency for our partner telcos around the world,” Longmier said in an Oct. 30 post on X, formerly Twitter. These partners include T-Mobile in the US, One New Zealand in New Zealand and Rogers in Canada.

Once that flight is on the books, only four more launches will be needed to reach its goal, he said.

Also in late October, Longmeir said they conducted the first DTC tests in Japan.

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