Update July 24: Starlink 9 mission liftoff now targeted for Friday, July 31, at 3:45 a.m. EDT, less than 24 hours after the scheduled Mars 2020 mission launch.
According to a NOTAM issued for falling debris from the second stage of a Falcon 9. SpaceX plans to launch its next batch of Starlink satellites on July 29th, mission named Starlink 9. This will be their 10th batch of roughly 60 Starlink satellites to support their growing global internet service. The Falcon 9 booster for this mission has been flown four other times. Its past missions were NASA DM-1, RADARSAT, Starlink 3, and Starlink 6. The booster will land on one of SpaceX’s drone ships out in the Atlantic ocean.
Ridesharing with this launch will be two BlackSky satellites. BlackSky operates a constellation of earth imagining satellites offering services to customers worldwide. The launch of these satellites has been plagued with delays. Its original launch date was set for June 24th and was delayed several times to July 8th. On which it was scrubbed for weather and then again on the 11th for technical problems.
This mission will bring the total number of launched Starlink satellites to just shy of 600. With the service going into beta soon.
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