SpaceX is preparing for its second launch this week with a sharing mission

CAPA CANAVERAL, Fla. – Following the successful launch of its payload in Florida earlier this week, SpaceX is preparing another Falcon 9 rocket for satellite takeoff from several customers, including DARPA, NASA and several Starlink satellites.

The SpaceX rideshare mission includes government and private customer payloads, as well as a dozen smaller nanosatellites. The rocket will depart from the Cape Canaveral 40 space station launch complex. The launch window opens on Saturday at 9:40 am. It was late on Friday morning.

The mission, known as Transporter-1, also includes a somewhat last-minute addition of 10 Starlink satellites, after receiving approval from the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month to include them.

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According to the 45th Space Wing forecast, the current concern for the launch window will be thick cloud cover. The Space Force forecasters give the launch window a 60% chance of favorable weather. A front will bring showers to the space coast on Saturday morning.

After launch, Falcon 9 will head south into polar orbit, a rare trajectory that sends the rocket off the Florida coast. Due to the unusual path of the SpaceX drone, Of course, I still love you, it will not be north of the launch site, waiting to catch the rocket, but south in the Atlantic Ocean.

Earlier this week, another Falcon 9 launched 60 Starlink Internet satellites from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Successful delivery to low Earth orbit was the 17th part of the SpaceX constellation lot designed to provide global internet even to remote areas of the world. There were almost 1,000 Starlink satellites already in orbit.

SpaceX plans to continue to grow that constellation this year with launches every two weeks.

Meanwhile, in Texas, SpaceX teams are working on another test flight of the company’s interplanetary spacecraft being developed on the Boca Chica site. Starship’s latest flight stunned online viewers around the world when the spacecraft’s prototype was launched, made an air return and landed for an explosive landing.

The launch this weekend will mark the third for SpaceX this year.

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