Live coverage: Falcon 9 launches 25 Starlink satellites after weather delays

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 25 Starlink satellites from California early Saturday, after days of delay.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base occurred at 1:04:19 a.m. PST (4:04:19 a.m. EST / 0904:19 UTC). The company had originally planned to launch the Starlink 17-25 mission Feb. 18 but it was delayed three times due to severe weather in central California. The rocket took a southerly trajectory on departure from the launch pad.



SpaceX was flying Falcon 9 first stage B1063 for a 31st time. With this flight it is the joint-second most flown booster in the SpaceX fleet. It previously launched 20 batches of Starlink satellites, three batches of Starshield satellites for the U.S. military, and the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART, Transporter-7, Iridium OneWeb, SDA-0B and NAOS missions

After separating from the first stage, the booster targeted a landing on the drone ship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ positioned downrange in the Pacific Ocean. Touching down on the deck of the autonomous landing platform about eight and half minutes after launch.

The 25 Starlink satellites were due to deploy from the rocket’s upper stage about an hour after launch.