Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent into space from Cape Canaveral with the ABS 2A and Eutelsat 117 West B communications satellites.
Launch is set for 10:29 a.m. EDT (1429 GMT) on June 15 from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. The satellites will be deployed in a supersynchronous transfer orbit, but SpaceX and the customers have not disclosed the exact target orbit parameters.
The payloads aboard the 26th Falcon 9 launch were manufactured by Boeing in El Segundo, California, and will steer into their operational geostationary orbits with plasma thrusters, and not a conventional liquid-fueled rocket engine.
The timeline below outlines the launch sequence for the Falcon 9 flight with ABS 2A and Eutelsat 117 West B. It does not include times for the descent and landing attempt of the first stage booster, a secondary objective.
SpaceX’s landing platform is positioned about 420 miles (680 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral for the first stage landing attempt, which is expected around 9 minutes after liftoff. Exact times for the recovery maneuvers were not released by SpaceX.
After years of anticipation, SpaceX launched the first test flight of its full-scale Starship rocket Thursday from South Texas, but the mission ended four minutes later as the vehicle veered out of control and self-destructed over the Gulf of Mexico following multiple engine failures.
A SpaceX Dragon supply ship packed with nearly three tons of experiments, crew provisions and supplies will remain on the ground until at least Friday morning to allow more time for NASA flight controllers to troubleshoot a problem with an electrical distribution unit on the International Space Station.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken undocked from the International Space Station Saturday aboard a Crew Dragon capsule, heading for a parachute-assisted splashdown Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico to wrap up a 64-day test flight of SpaceX’s commercial human-rated spaceship.