SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket at 5:48 p.m. EST (2221 GMT) Friday from Cape Canaveral on a mission to boost two high-power broadband satellites for SES’s O3b mPOWER network toward a unique equatorial orbit some 5,000 miles above Earth.
Flying due east from Florida’s Space Coast, the Falcon 9 rocket will place the first two O3b mPOWER satellites into orbit to join SES’s 20 first-generation O3b internet satellites launched from 2013 through 2019.
Forecasters from the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predict a greater than 90% probability of favorable weather for liftoff, with only a slight chance of thick clouds that might create a threat of lightning. The weather team expects good conditions in the Atlantic Ocean for landing of the Falcon 9’s first stage booster on SpaceX’s drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” about 420 miles (670 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.
