SpaceX is kicking off the St. Patrick’s Day holiday on Tuesday with a Falcon 9 rocket launch, flying from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The Starlink 10-46 mission will add another 29 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites to the low Earth orbit megaconstellation.
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 is scheduled during a window that opens at 6:26 a.m. EDT (1026 UTC). The rocket will fly on a north-easterly trajectory upon leaving the pad.
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff.
The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 75 percent chance for favorable weather during the launch opportunity. Meteorologists are watching for impacts from strong liftoff winds and the presence of cumulus clouds as well as a “moderate” risk to the booster recovery zone on a low-moderate-high scale.
SpaceX will launch the mission using the Falcon 9 rocket first stage booster with the tail number 1090. This will be its 11th flight following missions, like Crew-10, Bandwagon-3 and CRS-33.
Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1090 will target a landing on the drone ship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’, positioned in the Atlantic Ocean. If successful, this will be the 147th landing on this vessel and the 587th booster landing to date for SpaceX.
