Update May 13, 1:30 a.m. EDT: SpaceX landed the first stage booster on its droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’
SpaceX succeeded with launching 28 more Starlink satellites from Florida early Tuesday morning following an overnight scrub the previous night. The Falcon 9 booster, 1067, made a record-breaking 28th flight.
Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center happened on Tuesday, May 13, at 1:02 a.m. EDT (0502 UTC). It was the 100th launch of a single-stick Falcon 9 rocket from this pad.
On Monday, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 50 percent chance for favorable weather at the opening of the launch window, noting that the outlook improves to 90 percent favorable closer to the end of the window. Meteorologists cited concerns with cumulus clouds and lightning.
“All but one or two models have pushed the passage of the main Gulf frontal boundary and associated showers and storms earlier in the day as compared to earlier runs. The result has been conditions trending better for a launch attempt late Monday night,” launch weather officers wrote. “However, while the main band may be offshore by the window open, it does look like the threat for precipitation does linger for at least the early portion of the window with quick improvement for the remainder of the window.”
Weather appeared to be the limiting factor to launch Monday morning, but SpaceX did not issue a statement about the reason for the scrub.
A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, SpaceX landed B1067 on its drone ship, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ positioned in the Atlantic Ocean to the east of the Bahamas.
This marked the 120th successful landing for this drone ship and the 446th booster landing to date for SpaceX.
