SpaceX aims for launch after sunset tonight from Cape Canaveral

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on May 6, 2025

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SpaceX has lined up another launch soon after sunset Tuesday night from Cape Canaveal.

A Falcon 9 carrying 28 Starlink satellites is targeting an 8:22 p.m. liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at the opening of a four-hour launch window.

The first-stage booster for the mission is flying for the seventh time and will aim for a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

This would be the 38th orbital launch from the Space Coast so far in 2025 with all but two coming from SpaceX. The others were Blue Origin’s debut New Glenn launch in January and a United Launch Alliance Atlas V that flew that company’s first mission of the year last week.

The majority of SpaceX’s 35 launches so far from either Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral have been for its Starlink program to build out its massive constellation of internet satellites.

This batch will bring the total near 8,500 satellites launched by SpaceX since the first operational mission in 2019, although only a little more than 6,600 remain in operational orbit, according to statistics maintained by astronomer Jonathan McDowell.

ULA’s first launch was the first of dozens planned for Amazon with a competing satellite constellation called Project Kuiper that looks to get 3,232 satellites in place by 2028.

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