Updated October 13 at 11:27 p.m. EDT (03:27 UTC): SpaceX has confirmed the deployment of the Kuiper satellites.
After more than a week of launch delays, SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral space station with two dozen high-speed Internet satellites from Amazon’s Project Kuiper on board Monday evening. The mission took place about an hour and a half after SpaceX’s Starship rocket touched down at the end of Starship 11 flight.
The mission, dubbed Kuiper Falcon 03 or KF-03, faced several days of launch delays due to bad weather in Cape Town and offshore. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 occurred at 9:58 p.m. EDT (01:58 UTC).
On Sunday, the 45th Weather Squadron predicted a 95 percent chance of favorable weather during the launch window. However, it continues to project a “moderate” risk for the recall recovery area on a low-moderate-high scale.
“Winds will slowly shift from northwest to north and low humidity levels will allow for mostly clear skies,” launch weather officials wrote. “This pattern will also continue during the Tuesday evening backup window. So the only concern for the main launch and backup days is the very low risk of Cumulus Cloud rule violations.”
“Recovery conditions will continue to be a focus on both days due to high winds and seas associated with the low near the landfall area.”
SpaceX launched this mission using the Falcon 9 B1091 first stage booster, which was launched for the second time. The booster, which will eventually be used as the Falcon Heavy’s primary booster, previously supported the KF-02 mission.
The B1091 made an autonomous landing on the “A Shortfall of Gravitas” drone, just over eight minutes after takeoff. This was the 128th landing on this ship and the 517th booster landing to date.
Kuiper’s deployment sequence began more than 56 minutes after takeoff and ended less than eight minutes later. This brings the satellite constellation to a total of 153 in low Earth orbit.
This is the sixth overall mission in support of the Kuiper constellation, following three launches aboard United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets and two aboard Falcon 9 rockets.
