SpaceX Starlink Group 7-13 Launch

[CTLaw]

Playback of scrub:

SCRUBBED - SpaceX - Falcon 9 - Starlink Group 7-13 - SLC-4E - Vandenberg SFB - February 7, 2024

Playback of second scrub:

SCRUBBED - SpaceX - Falcon 9 - Starlink Group 7-13 - SLC-4E - Vandenberg SFB - February 9, 2024

New livestream:

SpaceX - Falcon 9 - Starlink Group 7-13 - SLC-4E - Vandenberg SFB - Space Affairs Livestream

SpaceX plans to launch 22 Starlink satellites into Generation 2 Group 7 on 2024-02-10 at 00:34 with a four hour launch window. 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 14th flight, after a turnaround time of 64 days since its last mission. The booster will land on the droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ in the Pacific Ocean.

Feb. 3 edit delayed from 2024-02-04 at 02:43 UTC
Feb. 3 edit 2 delayed from 2024-02-06 at 02:43 UTC
Feb. 4 edit back to 2024-02-06 at 02:43 UTC from 2024-02-08 at 02:43 UTC
Feb. 6 edit to 2024-02-07 at 01:38 UTC from 2024-02-06 at 02:43 UTC
Feb. 7 edit to 2024-02-08 at 02:17 UTC from 2024-02-07 at 01:38 UTC
Feb. 8 edit to 2024-02-10 at 00:34 UTC from 2024-02-08 at 02:17 UTC

[Gavin]

There are beginning to be some worries about the impact of the growing number of satellites cluttering up images from ground-based telescopes. The European Space Agency is fretting about the potential effects on astronomical observations of the uncounted number of small pieces of space junk now in orbit.

In one sense, those worries seem strange, considering that most telescopes take relatively long exposures in which the passage of satellites would be expected to be no more than low-level noise. When the first Mars lander was dispatched, someone (might have been Carl Sagan) did a demonstration where a marching band walked past a lander while it was taking a photograph. Because of the exposure time and the noise-eliminating technology, the marching band was not visible on the image.