SpaceX will launch 48 Starlink 1.5 satellites into low Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Friday, July 7 at 12:29 p.m. PST (19:29 UTC).
48 Starlink satellites will be launched at an orbital inclination of 43 degrees and are part of constellation 5-13. This will be the 43rd Falcom 9 launch so far this year and the 45th mission overall in 2023.
With this launch, SpaceX will bring the total number of Starlink satellites launched to 4,746, 177 of which were launched last month. This pace has made SpaceX the world leader in mass-to-orbit space and a company that proves time and again the benefits of reuse. This will be the 99th orbital launch worldwide, with SpaceX being responsible for roughly half with 45 launches.
Launching this group of Starlink satellites will be Booster 1063 on its twelfth flight, seven of which have been Starlink missions. B1063 will launch to the south, parallel to the California coast. Stage one and stage two will separate after two and a half minutes into flight, and then stage two will perform a dog-leg maneuver to send itself over Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and the appropriate 43-degree orbital inclination.
While the second stage heads into low Earth orbit, the first stage targets the “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship stationed in the Pacific Ocean ~668 km away. The first stage will descend around the same time as the second stage grounds down less than nine minutes into the mission, then, after the 10-minute coast stage, the 48 satellites will separate from the second stage and make their way into operational orbit.
Watch the launch of 48 Starlink satellites below!
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