Live coverage: SpaceX planning pre-dawn Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral of 29 Starlink satellites

SpaceX is planning to launch another 29 satellites for its Starlink internet service before sunrise on Friday at Cape Canaveral.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 is scheduled for 5:20:50 a.m. EST (1020:50 UTC).

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the launch starting about one hour prior to liftoff.

Forecasters with the 45th Weather Squadron, based at Cape Canaveral, predicted an 85-percent chance of acceptable conditions during the four-hour launch window. A cold front arriving in the central Florida area later in the day will result in only a 30-percent chance of acceptable weather should the launch be delayed to Saturday.

After sending the second stage on its way with its stack of Starlink V2 Mini satellites, Falcon 9 first stage booster B1069, will target a landing on the drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ stationed in the Atlantic east of The Bahamas.

It will be the 30th flight for this booster, which entered the SpaceX fleet for the CRS-24 space station cargo flight in December 2021. B1069 was badly damaged during the landing on that inaugural mission and didn’t fly again until August 2022. Since that troubled start, it has made 25 Starlink delivery runs and also launched the Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13-F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19 missions.

Friday’s mission will be SpaceX’s 25th Falcon 9 launch of the year and the 607th Falcon 9 flight since the rocket was introduced in 2010.