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SpaceX Starlink launch on August 1

July 31, 2020

By Chris Forrester

SpaceX will launch its much-postponed 10th payload of Starlink satellites on August 1st from its Florida base.

SpaceX will carry 57 Starlink satellites plus two guest payloads for BlackSky. Launch is scheduled for 03.21am Florida time (07.21 UTC) from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center.

This flight will be the fifth launch for the Falcon 9’s first stage, and the landing attempt following launch will take place down range onto SpaceX’s ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ floating barge.

The launch is also important in that each of the 57 Starlink satellites has been fitted with so-called sun visors to help reduce the impact of sunlight on the craft and thus reduce complaints from Earth-based stargazers.

A successful launch will take the overall total of orbiting Starlink craft to almost 600.

SpaceX, according to reports from Bloomberg, is looking for up to another $1 billion of financing in its ‘Nth’ round, which, according to analysts, would value SpaceX at some $44 billion and make it the third most-valuable privately held company on the planet.

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