SpaceX slips in Starlink launch after Crew-8 gets delayed until Saturday

Bad weather along the launch corridor for a planned human spaceflight from Kennedy Space Center has prompted at least a two-day delay, so SpaceX took the opportunity to shoehorn in a launch without humans from nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday.

Plans had been to prep all day for the Crew-8 launch that was set to lift off from KSC early Friday, but SpaceX instead launched a Falcon 9 from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 carrying 23 of the company’s Starlink satellites, lifting off at 10:30 a.m.

The first-stage booster for the mission flew for the 11th time and made another successful recovery downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship Just Read the Instructions.

Now delayed until at least Saturday, the Crew-8 mission aims to take up three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station. NASA and SpaceX chose to delay because of poor offshore conditions for the flight track of the Crew Dragon Endeavour, including high winds and waves along the eastern seaboard.

“In the unlikely case of an abort during launch or the flight of Dragon, the wind and wave conditions must be within acceptable conditions for the safe recovery of the crew and spacecraft,” NASA stated on an update to its website.

Now the Falcon 9 carrying NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps as well as Roscosmos’ Alexander Grebenkin is targeting 11:16 p.m. on Saturday to lift off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A. Docking with the ISS won’t happen until Sunday afternoon.

NASA as a rule has requested that SpaceX stand down from any launch attempts within 24 hours of a human spaceflight, so with the Crew-8 delayed by nearly 48 hours, SpaceX wasted no time to take the launch opportunity.

The result is the 13th launch from the Space Coast in 2023, with all by one coming from SpaceX.

The company has also flown seven times from its California launch operations, so this mission makes it 19 for the year among its three pads on each coast, or a pace of nearly three launches per week.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has said the company could see as many as 150 launches in 2023, including the lion’s share of what could be more than 100 total from the Space Coast among all launch providers.

United Launch Alliance was the lone other launch in January.

PORT CANAVERAL/COURTESY A SpaceX Falcon 9 rises into space after launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday.