Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent into space from Cape Canaveral with the Eutelsat 115 West B and ABS 3A communications satellites.
Launch is set for 10:50 p.m. EST on March 1 (0350 GMT on March 2) from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. The satellites will be deployed in a supersynchronous transfer orbit with perigee of approximately 400 kilometers (250 miles), an apogee of 63,000 kilometers (39,146 miles) and an inclination of 24.8 degrees.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired into space from Florida’s Atlantic coastline Monday with a clandestine payload for a U.S. government spy agency, then returned to Cape Canaveral for a pinpoint landing.
SpaceX launched its fifth Falcon 9 rocket in 22 days on Saturday, beginning a mission to deploy 52 more Starlink internet satellites and two rideshare payloads for Capella Space and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 6:56 p.m. EDT (2256 GMT), and SpaceX successfully landed the first stage on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX rolled out a Falcon 9 rocket to launch pad 39A early Tuesday for a prelaunch hotfire test before this weekend’s liftoff with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government spy satellite agency. The static fire test was completed at 3:02 p.m. (1902 GMT).