SpaceX sent another group of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit early this evening from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. Liftoff was at 5:10 PM EDT under stiff breezes and crystal blue skies.
SpaceX sent another group of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit early this evening from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. Liftoff was at 5:10 PM EDT under stiff breezes and crystal blue skies.
Around 8.5 minutes after liftoff, Booster B1078 touched down safely on the company’s drone ship ‘A Shortfall Of Gravitas’ to complete its nineteenth mission successfully, while the second stage and payload continued to low Earth orbit. About the same time that the booster landed, the initial orbit for the payload was achieved, with a short orbit rounding burn just before payload deployment.
At 6:16 PM EDT, SpaceX confirmed a successful deployment of the payload of Starlink satellites.
SpaceX is scheduled to launch another set of Starlink satellites aboard a Falcon 9 late on Sunday evening from Space Launch Complex 40.
Keep in mind that launch dates and times change often. Launch attempts can be scrubbed anytime due to weather, technical reasons, or range conditions.
Lather, rinse, repeat: SpaceX plans to launch Falcon 9 tomorrow from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, carrying another group of Starlink satellites. The launch window extends from 5:10 PM EDT to 9:08 PM the same day.
The booster used for this mission will land on ASDS ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ off of the coast of the Carolinas, and as such, there will be no sonic boom over the Space Coast region.
The mission’s payload is another group of Starlink satellites, which will join Group 10 of SpaceX/Starlink’s orbital constellation in low-Earth orbit. Starlink satellites account for more than 50% of all active satellites, with over 7,000 active units in orbit. Starlink is an Internet service serving over four million customers in over one hundred countries and territories globally.
It has been reported that SpaceX ultimately seeks to have 29,988 satellites orbiting between 211 and 381 miles above Earth.
The 45th Weather Squadron of the US Space Force Launch Delta 45 has forecast a 25% probability of a violation of acceptable weather conditions through the launch window, meaning that they expect conditions to be 75% GO.
Primary concerns are winds and cumulus clouds in the Cape Canaveral area.
Tomorrow’s launch is northeastwards. Spectators facing in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean from Florida will see Falcon 9 traveling right to left.
SpaceCoastLaunchCalendar.com will have a livestream of the launch if you’re not able to watch the launch in person: Livestream
SpaceX will have a livestream of the launch on their website: Starlink 10-13. This will also be available on the X platform. Coverage starts about fifteen minutes before liftoff.
Spaceflight Now will have coverage of the launch starting about one hour before liftoff on Youtube: link
For official updates regarding launch times, SpaceX.com is the best source of information. Starlink launch times change from time to time, and the company generally updates their website within minutes of the decision to change the launch time. This is very handy if none of the streaming options on YouTube have started their broadcasts.
Remember that there is a delay between a launch stream and the actual countdown clock. That is simply because of physics: it takes time for the signal to travel from the launch site, through the Internet, and back down to your phone, resulting in a five to fifteen-second delay.
Next Space Flight an app for iOS and Android phones, has a real-time countdown clock that is accurate to a second, give or take. The app is free. Search the App Store or Google Play. They are also on the web: nextspaceflight.com.
The best free options are available for spectators: Jetty Park, the Banana River Bridge on FL 528 W or the southern Titusville parks on Washington Avenue / US-1 are your best bets.
The Space Bar will be open through the launch window. New York New York in Titusville will be open to roughly 7 PM, and is a great place to watch as well. Restaurants in Port Canaveral, specifically Gators Dockside, Fishlips and Grills Seafood should have good views after the rocket clears obstructions.
Cocoa Beach or the Cocoa Beach Pier area is also very good, but ignition won’t be visible and it will take several seconds for the rocket to clear obstructions between the launch pad and viewers.
Pete Carstens is a man who can see things almost no one else can. Long after launch spectators and even photographers have called it a day, Pete continues tracking the launch, watching the streaking rocket sometimes almost all the way to orbit. Fortunately, he shares everything he sees, making space flight journalism all the better for it.
Along with Chuck and Jen Briggs of C&J Images and a handful of highly talented staff photographers, Carstens’ company, Max Q Productions, provides the bulk of the original live video that Spaceflight Now produces. SFN, of course, is one of the highest-tier independent space news organizations that provide live launch coverage and commentary and is trusted by tens of thousands of space enthusiasts around the world as an original, accurate and pleasant place to catch up on all things space-related.
Here in Florida, people often use SFN to keep up with the last hour of a countdown until after liftoff until the conclusion of launch activities. It’s not uncommon for spectators to have a Spaceflight Now livestream playing on their cellphone while they are watching the launch on the beach, beside the Indian River or even at Kennedy Space Center. If there is news, Spaceflight Now will be among the very first to share it.
Rockets travel far and fast, and after a liftoff, it’s never more than a couple of minutes before they are hard to see as a spectator on the ground with the naked eye. At night, after staging, one might see the launching rocket as a dot of light moving across the sky, but not much more than that. During the day, it’s even harder to see.
That’s where Pete Carstens and Max Q comes in. Using his gear, Pete can not only still see the rocket, he can also track a SpaceX booster’s “entry burn” from a couple hundred miles away
Photographers using the highest-end zoom lenses can’t often resolve a rocket that’s fifty miles (80 km) high and traveling a few thousand miles per hour even if they can capture great views of the engines’ flame plume.
How does he do it? “The main unit is a Kintec that has been refurbished by Ed Geiger,” Carstens said. Geiger is a legendary launch videographer who was one of the first to do what was previously the domain of NASA and the US Air Force—tracking rockets with huge telescopes purpose-fit for the task.
“It [the motorized telescope mount] is controlled manually by joystick,” Carstens tells us. “Mounted on it is a 12″ and 8″ telescope along with a 750mm lens as well as a wide lens that I use to acquire the rocket if it moves out of frame due to clouds. That’s four cameras mounted on the tracker.”
As far as cameras, Carstens says, “I’m currently using two Canon R5’s at 4k (can do 8k but overheating is an issue) and a 90D at 4k. I also use a stationary 90D with a 4″ telescope that I’ll use when at KSC for lift off at the launch pad at 120 FPS for slow motion clips.”
Carstens, like many launch photographers, got his start when he moved to the Sunshine State. “I relocated to Florida with my job and family in 2019 and started photographing and taking videos immediately. It took me about one to two years to get my 14″ telescope to be able to track manually with the software provided by Astronomy Live. They can be found on X @astrofreg. I then partnered with US Launch Report and started using one of Ed Geiger’s trackers that he refurbished and have since also partnered with Spaceflight Now.”
“I try to shoot every launch whether out at the Cape, or from my home on the Space Coast,” Carstens says. “Lately the only launches I miss are if I am out of town.”
That’s not always easy. Florida weather is notoriously fickle. It can be raining heavily in one spot, and as little as a single mile away, skies might be partly cloudy. “Weather can be a big issue and in the Florida summer months, it gets quite chaotic,” Carstens told us. “It can be clear at the launch pad and raining 5 miles away. I live about 20 miles south of Cape Canaveral and it can be a very different view from what is going on at the Cape with the guys at Spaceflight Now. It can work in my favor in that Cape Canaveral is completely socked in and clear down at my location.”
We asked what Pete’s favorite launches to capture are, and he said, “I would say any launch around sunset with clear skies are the best. Several launches have key moments that stand out but the Falcon Heavy USSF-67 mission on January 15, 2023 was pretty spectacular, even though my settings were a little off.”
We asked Carstens if he had any advice for amateur photographers trying to take good launch photographs. “Start with a good tripod and a good fluid mount or a 360-degree rotatable panoramic gimbal tripod head ball mount,” he said. “Also a good lens or ‘good glass’.”
Some other advice that Carstens offers is something that amateurs sometimes forget to do, and that’s to record their settings, the conditions at launch as well as the location where they took their photos. “Write down your camera settings for each launch as well as the time of day and conditions and adjust as needed and compare,” Carstens advises. “For instance, there is a huge difference if the sun is behind you vs in front of you. Also, time of year, summer brings humidity (dirty air) vs winter with less humidity (cleaner air) You really notice the difference with a highly magnified lens.”
That “dirty air” that Pete mentions is also called “heat distortion,” “shimmer,” or sometimes a “mirage.” Being that a photographer will always be several miles from the launch pad, the light from the rocket and the launch tower has to go a very long way to reach the camera. The temperature and humidity of the air varies over the length of the distance between the camera and rocket, and that changes its optical qualities very slightly. A good example that anyone should be familiar with is stars “twinkling” at night — that’s heat distortion. It’s the bane of launch photographers in Florida all summer.
Carstens’ advice about using good lenses is sage as well: rockets turn into tiny objects in the sky, and high-quality glass resolves them more clearly, resulting in a better photo. And that should be mounted to a solid tripod that’s steady, coupled with a camera mount that operates smoothly.
If you’d like to keep up with Pete’s work, he told us that “I provide live launch tracking for Spaceflight Now on their live YouTube channel. I also post still images from the video and then edit together the different focal length shots to a video that I post on my YouTube channel at Max-Q Productions – (@maxqproductions1) and then post to the following Social sites, X – @CarstensPete, Instagram – @pete_carstens, Facebook – pete.carstens.56, [and on] TikTok – @petecarstens3.”
Give him a follow on one or more of those channels. If you enjoy incredible images of rockets in flight, you will be glad that you did.
SpaceX and Falcon 9 launched another batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral into low Earth orbit late in the afternoon of October 27, 2024. Liftoff was at 5:47 PM EDT under crystal clear skies and a slight breeze.
SpaceX and Falcon 9 launched another batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral into low Earth orbit late this afternoon. Liftoff was at 5:47 PM EDT under crystal clear skies and a slight breeze.
Around 8.5 minutes after liftoff, Booster B1069 touched down safely on the company’s drone ship ‘Just Read The Instructions’ to complete its nineteenth mission successfully, while the second stage and payload continued to low Earth orbit.
At 6:53 PM EDT, SpaceX confirmed a successful deployment of the payload.
SpaceX is scheduled to launch another set of Starlink satellites aboard a Falcon 9 early on Monday evening from Space Launch Complex 40.
Keep in mind that launch dates and times change often. Launch attempts can be scrubbed anytime due to weather, technical reasons, or range conditions.
SpaceX plans to launch Falcon 9 tomorrow from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, carrying another group of Starlink satellites. The launch window extends from 5:47 PM EDT to 9:47 PM this evening. According to SpaceX, “If needed, additional opportunities are also available on Sunday, October 27 starting at 5:24 p.m. ET.”
Booster B1069 will be used this evening. It last launched on August 31st, and tonight, it will be its 19th flight. This booster was first used for the CRS-24 mission, and also flew OneWeb 1, SES 18+19, Eutelsat HOTBIRD-F1,and 14 previous Starlink missions.
The mission’s payload is another group of Starlink satellites, which will join Group 10 of SpaceX/Starlink’s orbital constellation in low-Earth orbit. Starlink is an Internet service serving over four million customers in over one hundred countries and territories globally.
The 45th Weather Squadron of the US Space Force Launch Delta 45 has forecast a 10% probability of a violation of acceptable weather conditions through the launch window, meaning that they expect conditions to be 90% GO. This is pretty close to a perfect forecast for the launch window.
Primary concerns are cumulus clouds in the Cape Canaveral area.
The trajectory for this evening’s launch is northeastwards, or left-to-right if you are facing the Atlantic Ocean on the Space Coast.
SpaceCoastLaunchCalendar.com will have a livestream of the launch if you’re not able to watch the launch in person: Livestream
SpaceX will have a livestream of the launch on their website: Starlink 10-8. This will also be available on the X platform. Coverage starts about fifteen minutes before liftoff.
Spaceflight Now will have coverage of the launch starting about one hour before liftoff on Youtube: link
For official updates regarding launch times, SpaceX.com is the best source of information. Starlink launch times change from time to time, and the company generally updates their website within minutes of the decision to change the launch time. This is very handy if none of the streaming options on YouTube have started their broadcasts.
Remember that there is a delay between a launch stream and the actual countdown clock. That is simply because of physics: it takes time for the signal to travel from the launch site, through the Internet, and back down to your phone, resulting in a five to fifteen-second delay.
Next Space Flight an app for iOS and Android phones, has a real-time countdown clock that is accurate to a second, give or take. The app is free. Search the App Store or Google Play. They are also on the web: nextspaceflight.com.
The best free options are available for spectators: Jetty Park, the Banana River Bridge on FL 528 West or the southern Titusville parks on Washington Avenue / US-1.
The Space Bar will be open through the launch window. New York New York in Titusville will be closing right as the window opens. Restaurants in Port Canaveral, specifically Gators Dockside, Fishlips and Grills Seafood should have good views after the rocket clears obstructions.
Cocoa Beach or the Cocoa Beach Pier area is also very good, but ignition won’t be visible and it will take several seconds for the rocket to clear obstructions between the launch pad and viewers.
SpaceX and Falcon 9 lofted another twenty Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral into low Earth orbit tonight. Liftoff was at 5:47 PM EDT.
SpaceX and Falcon 9 lofted another twenty Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral into low Earth orbit tonight. Liftoff was at 5:47 PM EDT.
Around 8.5 minutes after liftoff, Booster B1073 touched down safely on the company’s drone ship ‘A Shortfall Of Gravitas’ to complete its eighteenth mission successfully, while the second stage and payload continued to Earth orbit.
At 6:56 PM EDT, SpaceX confirmed a successful deployment of the payload and noted that this was their 100th successful Falcon flight of the year. (The number includes Falcon Heavy) That record is notable, given that all other nations plus other launch providers in the US have only collectively launched 95 other missions.
SpaceX is scheduled to launch another set of Starlink satellites aboard a Falcon 9 early on Saturday evening from Space Launch Complex 40.
Keep in mind that launch dates and times change often. Launch attempts can be scrubbed anytime due to weather, technical reasons, or range conditions.
NASA has announced that they are scheduling Crew-8 from the International Space Station today so that the four astronauts comprising the crew can begin their return to Earth:
NASA and SpaceX now are targeting no earlier than 5 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 23, for the agency’s Crew-8 mission to depart from the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. An undocking on Wednesday would result in a splashdown on Friday, Oct. 25.
Forecasters have seen improvement in expected weather at some of the landing sites off the coast of Florida and continue to monitor conditions while considering splashdown sites and exact timing.
NASA, October 22, 2024
The agency added that there is another weather briefing this morning. The specific splashdown location has not been announced, but will either be in Florida’s waters in the Gulf of Mexico or off of the eastern Florida coast.
The last two weeks of weather have not been very kind to spaceflight schedules here in Florida, with hurricane-related or wind-related launch scrubs, and delays in the return of Crew-8 from ISS. Last month, the Polaris Dawn crew’s return was delayed due to weather as well.
Fortunately, forecasts seem to be turning in favor of launches and landings. The 45th Weather Squadron of Space Launch Delta 45 reported in their launch forecast for Starlink 6-61 (also scheduled for Wednesday, October 23) that “Launch conditions improve for Thursday as [a hgh pressure] ridge builds over the Florida peninsula, relaxing wind speeds and ushering in even drier air. Weather will be very favorable with a negligible risk of any weather violations [for launching.]” Presumably the calmer skies will also be of benefit to Crew-8’s astronauts.
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