SpaceX targets Friday morning Falcon 9 rocket launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

With missions bouncing around the Eastern Range schedule this week, SpaceX crews are prepping to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on a Friday, June 13, morning Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The 4½-hour launch window opens at 7:45 a.m. and extends until 12:16 p.m., a Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory shows.

The Falcon 9 will ascend along a southeasterly trajectory, then deploy a payload of Starlink broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit. As of Wednesday, June 11, the Starlink constellation had grown over the years to 7,711 functioning satellites, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

SpaceX Starship: Air Force: Starship to cause few environmental impacts at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

No Brevard County sonic booms are expected, since the rocket's first-stage booster will target landing aboard a SpaceX drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. For FLORIDA TODAY Space Team live blog coverage of the Starlink 12-26 mission, tune in to floridatoday.com/space starting about 90 minutes before liftoff.

Noteworthy calendar changes this week are shuffling launches on Florida's Space Coast:

• SpaceX stood down from Wednesday's Axiom Space's fourth crewed launch to the International Space Station, allowing time to repair a liquid-oxygen leak identified during post-static-fire booster inspections. No new launch date has been announced.
• Citing multiple weather delays during launch processing, United Launch Alliance pushed back its second Project Kuiper satellite mission for Amazon to 1:25 p.m. Monday, June 16.
• Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp announced the second New Glenn heavy-lift rocket will launch no earlier than Aug. 15. No word yet on that rocket's payload.

For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space. Another easy way: Click here to sign up for our weekly Space newsletter.

Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1

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