Falcon 9 Has Gone Vertical in Preparation for Launch StarLink V1L8

Early Saturday morning (June 13, 2020), SpaceX will launch another Falcon9 for their StarLink satellite constellation.

This will be the 8th launch of the V1 satellites and the 9th launch total. The first launch on May 24, 2019, carried 60 satellites that were v 0.9 test satellites. These satellites were used to test ground communications and deorbiting. This first batch of satellites lacked the planned interlink capabilities so they are not included in the constellation count.

Tomorrow's scheduled launch will only carry 58 Starlink satellites instead of the usual 60 in order to make room for 3 other satellites hitching a ride on a secondary mission as a rideshare payload. These satellites are SkySat 16, 17, and 18.

SkySat is a constellation of Earth-observing satellites with a 70cm resolution. The latest revision of these satellites is capable of recording 90-second clips of high definition video at 30 frames per second on-demand - usually within 90 minutes of requesting the custom video.

The booster is designated as B1059.3, which means that it is the 59th Block 5 booster that they have built. This booster flew twice before. Its first two flights were both flights to launch Cargo Dragon capsules to the International Space Station (ISS) on the Cargo Resupply Missions 19 and 20.

Another StarLink mission with rideshare is scheduled for later this month on June 22 and a GPS satellite launch scheduled for June 30. This will be a record four launches in one month for SpaceX.

Saturday's launch is scheduled for 5:21 am (UTC -5).

I plan on hosting a watch party of the launch live on my Facebook Page. Feel free to stop by!