SpaceX hopes to keep the love of Falcon 9 flights going this Valentine’s Day with a launch launching from California. The Starlink 7-14 mission is poised to the second of up to three rocket launches for SpaceX within a span of less than nine hours.
The Falcon 9 rocket supporting this launch is set to liftoff at 5:38 p.m. PST (8:34 p.m. EST, 0134 UTC). The weather in Southern California near Vandenberg Space Force Base was somewhat cloudy heading into the late afternoon.
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage on Launchpad Live starting about 30 minutes before liftoff.
This latest Starlink mission comes sandwiched between two marquee missions for SpaceX: the USSF-124 mission, arranged by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command, and the IM-1 mission, a robotic lunar lander from Houston-based Intuitive Machines.
The former launched successfully from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:30 p.m. EST (2230 UTC) and the latter is aiming to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 1:05 a.m EST (0605 UTC) on Thursday, Feb. 15.
The Starlink 7-14 mission is set to be the 299th Falcon 9 launch to date and the 9th dedicated Starlink launch of 2024. Following stage separation, the first stage booster, tail number B1082, will land on the droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ which is staged out in the Pacific Ocean.
