SpaceX Starlink Group 4-29 Launch

SpaceX plans to launch 53 Starlink satellites into Shell 4, with an eventual 540 km circular service orbit at 53.22° inclination, on 2022-10-03 at 23:56 UTC. The launch will be from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage booster, B1071, will be making its fifth flight, after a turnaround time of 73 days since its last mission.

It’s unusual for SpaceX to launch Starlink satellites into 53.22° Shell 4 from Vandenberg, but they’ve done it before. The reason for this may be that with the NASA Crew-5 launch scheduled for 2022-10-05 from Launch Complex 39A and the Galaxy 33 and 34 satellites launching from Launch Complex 40 on 2022-10-07 (October 6 local time), the Florida facilities and staff could not fit this one in.

Here is the pre-flight preview from Everyday Astronaut.

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Today’s launch attempt was cancelled, per the following tweets. If Crew-5 stays on schedule, they will further delay this mission until after the crew launch on 2022-10-05.

spacex_2022-10-04

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The launch has now been rescheduled for 2022-10-05 at 23:10 UTC. The player in the original post will work for this launch attempt.

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Launch, first stage landing, and orbital insertion were successful. I have cued the replay in the original post to start one minute before liftoff.

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Elon Musk has posted this picture taken from a Starlink satellite (which apparently has a camera—who knew?) of other Starlinks in its flock and the Falcon 9 second stage that launched it performing the disposal burn to de-orbit and burn up in the atmosphere.

starlink_2022-10-07

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Don’t tell Putin, but they also carry a .22 LR automatic rifle

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Here is a video clip from Scott Manley’s 2022-10-08 Deep Space Update which shows the Falcon 9 upper stage deorbit burn from comment #5. In the video you can see the stage ignite and quickly exit, stage right, on its way to burning up in the atmosphere.

YouTube video clips cannot be embedded here, so click the link to view.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxE6CvE41iIPj0L4-P3CcIZnKIU_tjnWFY