Updated 9:40 p.m. EST: SpaceX has scrubbed the mission attempt on Sunday.
The fourth time was not the charm to launch its latest batch of Starlink internet satellites. The company has been unable to launch the Starlink 7-11 mission for the past four consecutive days from Southern California.
SpaceX is now targeting liftoff on Tuesday afternoon at 4:35 p.m. PST (7:35 p.m. EST, 0035 UTC). It blamed poor weather conditions for the reason they had to stand down from launch attempts on both Saturday and Sunday. They hadn’t started fueling when the scrubs were called.
On Friday night, with 59 seconds left on the countdown clock, an abort was called just as the Falcon 9’s onboard computers were taking control of the countdown. SpaceX’s webcast, social media feeds and web site did not provide an explanation for the last-minute cancellation. The company scrubbed a launch attempt on Thursday after loading propellants aboard the rocket at Vandenberg Space Force Base. It also did not give a reason for that delay.
This will be SpaceX’s 7th launch of the year so far and its third from the Golden State. Onboard is a batch of 22 Starlink V2 Mini satellites, which will join the constellation of more than 5,300 currently on orbit.
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the mission about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.
The first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1063 in the SpaceX fleet, will be making its 16th launch and landing on this flight. It previously supported the launch of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft the Transporter-7 rideshare mission and 10 Starlink flights in its past.
About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1080 is set to land on the droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ which is positioned in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California. This will be the 80th booster landing for OCISLY and the 208th droneship landing to date for SpaceX.
Meanwhile, the company continues to monitor the progress of the Ax-3 mission, which launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Thursday afternoon. Four astronauts are flying aboard Crew Dragon Freedom to dock to the International Space Station on Saturday morning.
