A SpaceX rocket suffered a last-second abort while attempting to launch 22 Starlink internet satellites from Florida on Friday afternoon (June 14).
The SpaceX booster, a Falcon 9 rocket that has flown 15 times before, halted its takeoff while igniting its nine first-stage engines at 5:07 p.m. EDT (2107 GMT) atop Space Launch Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. .
“Cancel, we aborted,” one SpaceX launch commentator said during the company’s conference. Live broadcast on X (formerly Twitter).
frustration! SpaceX cancels the last-second launch of 22 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. pic.twitter.com/r7ebUJdw1FJune 14, 2024
It’s not clear what caused the rare abort of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, or when the company will attempt to launch a Starlink space mission again. Today’s launch attempt had a four-hour time window, and a similar window is available on Saturday (June 15) starting at 4:07 PM EST (2007 GMT).
“Discontinue Falcon 9 launches today. New target launch date will be shared once available,” SpaceX He wrote in the task update on X.
Whether or not SpaceX attempts a launch on Saturday will likely depend on the nature of the flaw that caused Friday’s abort and how quickly it is addressed. Bad weather led to the delay of two previous attempts to launch a Starlink flight, first on June 12 and then again on June 13.
Related: How to track SpaceX’s Starlink satellites in the night sky
The upcoming launch will mark SpaceX’s 60th rocket launch of 2024 and the 16th flight of this particular Falcon 9 first stage. The rocket “previously launched SES-22, HAKUTO-R MISSION 1, Amazonas-6, CRS-27, Bandwagon-1, and 10 Starlink missions,” SpaceX wrote. In updating the task. The Falcon 9 stage is expected to land on a SpaceX drone ship at sea off the coast of Florida for later reuse.
Ten of the booster’s previous missions carried batches of Starlink satellites into orbit as part of SpaceX’s project to build a massive constellation network that can provide high-speed Internet access anywhere on Earth. This constellation currently consists of: Nearly 6,100 Starlink satellites in operation, according to satellite trackers.
Of the nearly 60 missions so far this year, 45 SpaceX launch missions are dedicated to launching Starlink satellites. The company has averaged a rocket launch every 2.7 days so far this year.
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