SpaceX delays Starlink launch attempt to Tuesday night amid windy, cloudy Cape forecast
Facing a cloudy, windy Monday forecast, SpaceX is pushing back its Falcon 9 rocket launch attempt roughly 24 hours to target a Tuesday night window at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, navigational warnings show.
The Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron had only forecast 30% odds of favorable conditions during the early stages of Monday's now-scrapped launch window. However, those odds will skyrocket upward to greater than 95% during Tuesday's backup window, which opens at 6:15 p.m. and lasts until 8:40 p.m. EDT, a Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory shows.
The Falcon 9 will deploy a batch of internet satellites into low-Earth orbit on this Starlink 6-53 mission.
No Central Florida sonic booms are expected. After soaring skyward along a southeasterly trajectory, the rocket's first-stage booster will target landing aboard a drone ship out at sea 8½ minutes after liftoff.
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In its forecast, the 45th Weather Squadron cited liftoff winds and cumulus clouds as Monday's primary weather risks, noting that models showed a passing front would create "a lingering low level cloud deck that may be just deep enough to pose launch weather concerns."
"The main weather threat has shifted towards the northerly wind surge driven by the gradient around the departing low," the forecast said.
To that end, the National Weather Service predicted northerly gusts could reach 30 mph during the Monday launch window at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
"The area of low pressure will move further away into the Atlantic on Tuesday with high pressure dropping acrossthe southeast and centering just offshore NE Florida. Though lighter onshore flow will bring in a few clouds, their height will be limited by drier conditions aloft," the squadron's forecast said.
"No significant launch weather concerns are expected for the backup window Tuesday evening," the forecast said.
SpaceX has yet to make a public announcement about this Starlink mission, which also appears on National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency navigational warnings.
For the latest news and launch schedule from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX delays Starlink launch try to Tuesday amid windy, cloudy forecast
