Update March 14, 9:49 a.m. EDT (1349 UTC): SpaceX confirms deployment of the 29 Starlink satellites.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 soared in-between a patchwork of clouds, like a needle through fabric, as climbed away from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Saturday morning to deliver 29 Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites into low Earth orbit.
Liftoff happened at 8:37:10 a.m. EDT (1237:10 UTC), with the rocket heading off on a north-easterly trajectory upon leaving the pad.
It appeared preparations for a Friday launch were not running on schedule. At the time the launch was pushed back to Saturday there was no sign of the rocket at Space Launch Complex 40.
The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 75 percent chance for favorable conditions during the Saturday morning launch window. The cloudy morning didn’t make for the best local launch viewing, but didn’t prove to be a show stopper.
SpaceX launched the mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number 1095. This was its sixth launch after previously flying five other batches of Starlink satellites.
Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1095 landed on the drone ship, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ positioned in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the 153rd landing on this vessel and the 584th booster landing to date for SpaceX.
