SpaceX lines up afternoon launch from Cape Canaveral

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Mar 18, 2025

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While SpaceX is busy Tuesday bringing astronauts home on one coast of Florida, it’s set to send up a rocket from the other.

A Falcon 9 carrying 23 Starlink satellites is targeting a 3:57 p.m. liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 during a launch window that runs through 6:09 p.m. A backup window runs from 1:42-5:42 p.m. Wednesday.

The first-stage booster for the mission is flying for the 19th time and will aim for a recovery landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

This would be the 23rd launch of the year from the Space Coast with all but one coming from SpaceX.

Its most recent launch of the Crew-10 mission from Kennedy Space Center last Friday set up the return of another crew that was waiting at the International Space Station.

The Crew-9 mission flying home on the Crew Dragon Freedom is set to splash down off Florida’s Gulf Coast two hours after the Falcon 9 launch, aiming for a 5:57 p.m. splashdown.

That spacecraft is bringing home three NASA astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut. While two of the four crew flew up to the station last September, the other two have been on the ISS since last June. They’re the Boeing Starliner astronauts who were left behind on the space station when NASA decided to send the Starliner home without crew.

Their return marks the end of 9 1/2 months in space.

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