SpaceX aims for double Space Coast launch within 4 hours today

ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX has a pair of launches on tap Monday from its two launch pads on the Space Coast that could lift off within four hours of one anothter.

First up is a Falcon 9 on the Koreasat-6A from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A targeting a window that runs from 12:07-4:07 p.m. and backup opportunities from 12:06-4:06 p.m. Tuesday. The payload is a communications satellite for South Korean company KT SAT Corporation Ltd. headed for geosynchronous transfer orbit.

This is the 23rd mission for the first-stage booster, which will aim for a recovery return to nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Landing Zone 1. If it lands, it will become the first SpaceX booster to successfully make 23 landings. Two previous boosters launched 23 times, but one blew up on its landing attempt while another was purposefully expended to get its payload to a higher orbital insertion.

SpaceX warned one or more sonic booms may be heard across parts of Central Florida, which would occur about eight minutes after liftoff.

“There is the possibility that residents of Brevard, Orange, Osceola, Indian River, Seminole, Volusia, Polk, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties may hear one or more sonic booms during the landing, but what residents experience will depend on weather and other conditions,” the warning stated.

The second launch on tap is a Falcon 9 on the Starlink 6-69 mission with 24 of SpaceX’s internet satellites set for liftoff from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:02 p.m. during a window that runs through 7: 44 p.m.

The launch was scrubbed from a Sunday attempt because of poor weather in the booster recovery area.

The first-stage booster for this mission is making its 12th flight and will aim for a recovery landing downrange in the Atlantic on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron forecasts a 70% chance for good conditions for the KSC launch, which improves to 90% in the event of a 24-hour delay, and forecasts an 80% chance for good launch conditions for the Cape Canaveral launch, which also improves to 90% in the event of a delay until Tuesday.

These would be the 77th and 78th launches from the Space Coast in 2024, with all but five coming from SpaceX.

The time between the two Space Coast launches, if they remain close to four hours apart, would not best SpaceX’s company record between its KSC and Canaveral pads, which was set Dec. 28, 2023 when a Falcon Heavy launch from KSC was followed by a Falcon 9 at Cape Canaveral in 2 hours and 54 minutes.

Even that has not beaten the all-time record on the Space Coast for shortest times between launches, which came during four Gemini program missions that flew in 1966. Those featured double launches from two different pads on what was then Cape Kennedy.

Those would send crew up in the Gemini capsule on Titan rockets about 100 minutes after Atlas boosters had sent up Agena Target Vehicles with which they would rendezvous in space.

The record remains the two launches from Gemini 11, which sent up astronauts Pete Conrad and Richard Gordon from Launch Complex 19 only 97 minutes and 25 seconds after the Agena launch from Launch Complex 14 just over 1 mile to the south.

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