SpaceX to attempt 600th Falcon booster landing amid West Coast Starlink mission

Update: Launch has slipped to Sunday.

SpaceX is positioned to complete its 600th Falcon booster landing during a Starlink mission now planned for Sunday morning. The Falcon 9 rocket will fly on a south-southwesterly trajectory upon departure from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

A launch attempt on Saturday was postponed. SpaceX typically does not explain the cause of such delays.

The Starlink 17-22 mission will add another 25 broadband internet satellites into the company’s low Earth orbit constellation that consists of more than 10,200 spacecraft.

Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East is now scheduled for Sunday, April 19 during a launch window that opens at 7 a.m. PDT (10am EDT / 1400 UTC).

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.

SpaceX will fly the mission using the Falcon 9i first stage booster with the tail number B1097, which will fly for a seventh time. It previously launched Sentinel-6B, Twilight, and five previous batches of Starlink satellites.

A little more eight minutes after liftoff, B1097 will land on the SpaceX drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ If successful, this will be the 191st landing on this vessel.