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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 23 Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida on Nov. 7, 2024. | Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX is set to launch another batch of Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida’s Space Coast early Tuesday morning (Feb. 4)
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink spacecraft, including 13 with direct-to-cell capability, is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Tuesday during a nearly three-hour window that opens at 3:37 a.m. EST (0837 GMT).
SpaceX will livestream the action via its X account, beginning about five minutes before launch.
If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions.”
It will be the 21st launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. Sixteen of its 20 flights to date have been Starlink missions.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will deploy the 21 Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) about 65 minutes after liftoff.
Related: Starlink satellite train: how to see and track it in the night sky
Related stories:
— SpaceX: Facts about Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company
— Starlink satellites: Facts, tracking and impact on astronomy
— SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches on record-breaking 24th flight (video)
SpaceX has launched 14 Falcon 9 missions so far in 2025. Nine of them have been Starlink flights.
Last year, the company launched more than 130 Falcon 9 flights, about two-thirds of them devoted to building out the Starlink network, the biggest satellite constellation ever assembled. SpaceX currently operates nearly 7,000 Starlink satellites in LEO, according to astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 3:10 a.m. ET on Feb. 3 with the new launch date of Feb. 4.
