Launch Date: June 30 Launch Window: 3:55-4:10 p.m. EDT (1955-2010 GMT) Launch Site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida Booster Recovery: ASDS Booster: B1060 Mass: 3,880 kg (8,553 lb) Orbit: Semi-synchronous MEO A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the U.S. Air Force’s third third-generation navigation satellite for the Global Positioning System. The satellite is built by Lockheed Martin. The Air Force previously planned to launch the second GPS 3-series satellite on this mission.
Air Force was nice enough to post amazing pics of the booster (more pics inside): Imgur I want that office...
First post updated with known information. The Air Force will now let SpaceX attempt to recover the core.
Sill looking good for April. They began media accreditation for the launch. Launch date and time added with current information.
Yup, straight from the range boss: Starlink mission scheduled for next week at Kennedy Space Center - SpaceNews.com
Now we have a semi-official date and time. SpaceX needs to get this one up so they can hopefully recover the booster. They need it to keep the Starlink launches moving along quickly. Adding B1060 into the availability mix gives SpaceX 5 main boosters to launch from: B1049 B1051 B1058 B1059 B1060 The quickest turnaround time for a Block 5 booster has been two months.
Am I confused? I think I see 3 F9 launches on the schedule IN JUNE. Starlink 8 in a few days (12th) Starlink 9 10 days later (22nd) And this one 8 days later (30th) I wonder if Boeing has ever done 3 launches in a month, ever. Heck - I wonder what other entity has launched something into spaced 3 times in a month, ever. So what - Starlink 10 by July 10?
Starlink 7 launched June 4th. If the three launches adiggs listed in the above post all launch in June that will give Spacex 4 in June.
To be fair, that's a bit like asking "I wonder what diesel F250 has ever been electric"... I know I've beating this horse for years now, but its all about demand for a rocket company and explicitly not supply. Nobody's launched 3 of the same payload rockets in a month, because they're not structured to do so, because they don't need to be. SpaceX's internal demand has creates a modified paradigm there, and certianly their pricing has created a secondary effect of making [other] mega-constellations slightly more plausible, but the future of the mega constellation is still a little bit fuzzy.
It is four launches in June if they don't get delayed somewhere. If they do that the May 30th launch of Bob and Doug made it two days away from five launches in June! Which is also their entire available fleet of boosters. There are two others in final testing for approval but they aren't officially sanctioned boosters quite yet. Those two are already assigned to Crew 1 and GPS III SV04.
Static Fire for B1060 set for the 24th or 25th. So there could be two functional Falcon 9's on their two pads at the Cape at the same time - for the first time. Another landmark achievement for SpaceX.
It happened. Static fire for B1060 happened today. So two Falcon 9's were vertical on two launch pads at the Cape.